Name | : | Jonathan Vincent Toups |
Contact | : | vincent.toups@gmail.com |
Profession | : | Data Scientist, Software Engineer |
Other Hats | : | Computational Neuroscientist, Writer, Artist, Physicist |
Location | : | The Triangle, North Carolina |
I am a scientifically trained data scientist and software engineer looking for ethical and intellectually stimulating application of my broad background and experience.
I am a technical professional with broad educational and work experience. While I presently work as a data scientist (and engineer) whose primary responsibility is the analysis and visualization of a large variety of types of data. I have also worked as a full stack software engineer responsible for both back end and front end software development. I have a doctorate in physics. My doctoral research was interdisciplinary, however, located at the intersection of biophysics, machine learning, and neuroscience.
I've analyzed data sets (from initial contact all the way to final results) from a large variety of sources of a variety of sizes in a variety of languages.
I am a game designer and developer - my first commercial game was released last year. It is about 10,000 lines of Scheme. Almost the entire game engine is implemented from scratch, including pathfinding (and associated data structures), AI, various Object Systems (including an ECS-style game engine). I also contributed significant, low level, cross platform code to the open source framework with which the game is written.
In the course of my professional life I have acquired significant skill with the following programming languages, listed in order of competence: R, Scheme, Javascript, Java, Scala, Scheme/Racket, Matlab, Common Lisp, C, Python, Lua, Bash. I enjoy learning new languages and paradigms.
I am proficient in or familiar with the use of the following tools and systems for software development and data analysis: AWS, R, Node, Bower, Browserify, Hive, SQLite, Emacs, Unix (linux, OSX/BSD), Matlab, git, LaTeX, HTML, HTTP, REST and others. I have also worked with RDF/Triple Store Technology. I have used Tableau but I very strongly prefer writing my own interactive visualizations in Javascript.
As a data scientist I've got the experience of a physicist, which means I've picked up a hodge-poddge of techniques as needed. I have particular experience with information theory, metric space analysis, unsupervised clustering, regression and classification. I very much enjoy the creative work of building the right visualization. My preference is for interactive visualizations written using Javascript and HTML5, sometimes using D3, often not.
As a physicist, I continue to be interested in the history and philosophical foundations of physics. As a programmer I am interested in purely functional and strongly statically typed languages. As a game designer, I'm interested in the intersection of the mathematical or technical structure of games and the emotional experience of fun. As a software engineer I'm interested in minimalism and rigor.
I understand monads and can explain in pretty simple terms why the philosophical interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is so challenging. I speak a little French.
In the course of work and education I have presented talks and posters at a variety of conferences, mostly pertaining to neuroscience. I was a "Scholar of Tomorrow" Fellow at UNC Chapel Hill and received the "Outstanding Graduate In Physics Award" at LSU. Details can be furnished upon request.
Please contact me for references.