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Sorenson was born in Indiana, the son of two faculty members at Valparaiso University. His mother, Norma Acker, was a biology lecturer, and his father, John Sorenson, was a mathematics professor. Sorenson was the oldest of three children, and attended Valparaiso High School, graduating in 1982. He then attended Valparaiso University, studying mathematics and computer science, with a minor in physics, and receiving a Bachelor's in 1986. He attended graduate school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, receiving a Master's degree in computer science in 1987, a Masters in mathematics in 1989, and a Ph.D in theoretical computer science in 1991.
He began teaching at Butler University in August 1991, was promoted to tenured professor in 2004, and was appointed chair of the computer science department in 2005. In 2007, he was co-leader on a project to obtain a supercomputer for the school, entitled "Big Dawg."
As of 2006, Sorenson has written over three dozen papers. His most well-known one is "Two Fast GCD Algorithms", 1994, which was used as a reference in Donald Knuth's book, The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 2, and many of his other papers have appeared in the ANTS conference proceedings.
