Software Development
I started programming in Python about 11 years ago when I began working on my Master's thesis. Since then it has been my language of choice for most purposes. During my academic career, I have contributed to several Python packages and release some of my own code as open-source software. Lately, especially after leaving academia for the tech industry, I have also picked up front-end development using Javascript/Typescript and HTML/CSS via frameworks such as Angular and React in order to build interfaces to access data.
Data Engineering
I have been working with data for more than a decade, and while I was often focused on analyzing the data, there have always data engineering task in my work, most commonly the ingress and transformation of astronomical data. After leaving academia, my tasks have shifted even more to the engineering side of data, including the development and maintenance of databases and data pipelines, extracting, transforming, and loading consumer product and review data.
Data Analysis/Science
During my studies of physics and astronomy and subsequent work as a postdoctoral researcher, I analyzed data from varied astronomical sources. I mainly focused on type Ia supernovae, the remarkably common and remarkably uniform explosions of a binary stars, which allow us to measure the expansion of the universe. I used statistical inference to build better methods for measuring the expansion as well as detecting deviations from our standard model of how the universe evolves. In addition to that I applied machine learning algorithms to clean up the data we obtain from various observatories and developed software allowing us to predict the outcome of astronomical survey based on a propose survey strategy. Today, may work focuses less on data science but I retain a keen interest in the field and strive to apply my knowledge where I can.
Hobbies
In my free time, I play and collect tabletop games, mostly board and role-playing games. Often when I encounter a repetitive task in a game I play a lot, I will apply my coding skills to development tools that will help me. Further I have previously hosted and managed a website that allowed player from across the globe to play Twilight Imperium, an epic space-opera board game, by forum. In the future, I plan to add a blog to this website, detailing my recent hobby projects, which will not be limited to games and software development but may also include cooking and baking recipes, as well as knitting and crochet patterns.