I’m Conor MacBride, a PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast. My research is focused on energy dissipation in the atmosphere of the Sun. This involves designing numerical simulations, and processing and analysing large data sets to extract novel insights.

For my doctoral research, I created an open source Python package, MCALF, which extracts velocity measurements from observations of the Sun. By utilising machine learning techniques, the method adapts to the physics present in each region of the Sun.

I actively contribute to open source projects, including SunPy and AstroPy. While my effort primarily involves Python development, I also work on integrating DevOps into open source projects to increase the quality of software and make it easier for new contributors to get involved. I achieve this through the development of Matplotlib’s pytest-mpl plugin and CI/CD pipeline templates, as well as working with open source projects directly.

I am an MPhys Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (first-class honours) graduate of the University of St Andrews. During my time at St Andrews, I co-founded an award-winning science podcast, insight.

• Worked closely with other committee members to boost attendance at events. Anticipated their needs and took initiative, designing and distributing posters and other media prior to events.
• Adapted my schedule when old projects changed and when new projects started.
• Built responsive website with member and events management system using HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL and iCalander as well as Slack and Mailchimp integrations to allow the committee to manage the society better. Used Google Analytics to monitor traffic and assess effectiveness of website content. Made adjustments accordingly.
• Co-founded and produced a science podcast, managing the technical aspects including the website, radio station, emails, RSS feed and editing and mastering the raw audio. Analysed email and website click-through rates to boost listening figures. I personally interviewed guests on occasions.
• Assisted with funding applications by recommending new podcasting equipment as well as participating in interviews for society awards. The society won 2nd most innovative society in St Andrews in 2017 primarily for the podcast.
• Implemented new advertising strategies including advertising through a Snapchat Geofilter and digital displays. Improved the society’s social media presence by migrating to a Facebook Page.

• Spent three months during Summer 2017 working on a project involving using a convolutional neural network to detect, from videos, fish swimming on the surface of sulfur water.
• Wrote a program that takes the fish detected by the neural network and connects the fish across frames in the video. It then filters out poor quality detections by setting a minimum number of frames a chain of detections has to be present in before it is considered to be a fish.
• My program significantly improved the reliability of the output from the neural network. This was proven by comparing the filtered detections with the detections from the neural network using annotated ground truth frames.
• Studied neural networks and retrained the existing neural network with new training data and different training parameters. I created multiple models then analysed their accuracy to find the optimal parameters.
• Used the Linux command line extensively and created Bash scripts to automate many tasks. Developed my skills using git and vim.