Vincent Dumont

Experience

Software Engineer

Apple Inc.

August 2022 - present
Sunnyvale, USA

Postdoctoral Researcher

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

• Develop hyperparameter optimization (HPO) software, HYPPO, using surrogate modeling, uncertainty quantification and asynchronous nested parallelism.
• HPO on U-Net models for fluid dynamics simulations, GAN models for High-Energy Physics simulations, and Graph neural nets for time-series predictions.
• Develop highly-scalable machine learning software package, MLDAS, for Distributed Acoustic Sensing data analysis.
• Use Hessian-based optimization algorithm on supervised deep residual neural network.
• Explore surface wave signal classification using UMAP and t-SNE machine learning techniques.
• Build classifier to identify coherent surface wave energies in large seismic datasets.
• Develop Physics-Informed Neural Network for surface wave inversion problems.

February 2019 - August 2022
Berkeley, USA

Research Scientist

University of Nevada, Reno

• Apply Bayesian statistics on a network of atomic clock data from a constellation of 32 GPS satellites to estimate constraints on coupling constants and search for dark matter topological defects.
• Do performance benchmarking of covariance matrix inversion using LU, Cholesky and SVD decomposition from LAPACK library.
• Perform theoretical approximation of probability density function of the effective coupling strength. Write Monte Carlo simulations in C++ to evaluate the detection probability of weak dark matter transient events.

August 2018 - February 2019
Reno, USA

Visiting Research Scientist

Helmholtz Institute Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg University

• Maintain JupyterHub server and data storage facilities.
• Build joint excess-power and coincidence analysis package to look for cross-correlated transient signals from multiple time-series magnetic field data streams.

September 2017
Mainz, Germany

Research Scientist

University of California, Berkeley

• Data analysis coordinator of the GNOME (Global Network of Optical Magnetometers for Exotic physics searches) international collaboration.
• Maintain and optimize the sensitivity of two nonlinear magneto-optical rotation (NMOR) atomic magnetometers which are part of the GNOME network.
• Extensive use of wavelet transform analysis to explore the magnetic pulse of cities.

July 2016 - August 2018
Berkeley, USA

Visiting Research Scientist

University of California, Berkeley

• Learn about atomic clocks and non-linear magneto-optical rotation (NMOR) atomic magnetometers.
• Analyze astrophysical and laboratory measurements of the fine-structure constant.
• Introduce time-frequency analysis of noisy data streams from table-top experiments for weak transient signal detection.

July 2015 - February 2016
Berkeley, USA

Visiting Research Scientist

Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo

• Develop a pattern recognition algorithm to identify Lyman-limit regions in quasar spectra.
• Measure the primordial abundance of deuterium in the Universe using quasar spectroscopy.
• Create SQL database of raw and processed astronomical data to be used among the collaboration.

June 2014
Oslo, Norway

Postgraduate Researcher

University of New South Wales

• Study the impact of wavelength distortion models on fine-structure constant measurements.
• Measurements of primordial Deuterium-to-Hydrogen ratio in Damped Lyman-α systems.
• Do non-linear Voigt profile fitting of complex absorption features in quasar spectra.
• Use high-performance computing facility to do intensive simulations and calculations.
• Apply genetic algorithm and multi-threading techniques to do automatic Voigt profile fitting.

June 2013 - July 2016
Sydney, Australia

Postgraduate Researcher

University of Chile

• Search for Deuterium absorption line in high-resolution quasar spectra from UVES.
• Write elaborated Python scripts to do astronomical data reduction and calibration.
• Build tools in IDL to help visualising high-resolution spectra.
• Create a feature-matching algorithm to automatically identify quasar absorption line systems.

March 2010 - March 2012
Santiago, Chile

Research Assistant

European Organization for Nuclear Research

• Improve sections of the SpartyJet jet-energy calibration software.
• Perform Monte Carlo simulations of high-energy particle collisions using C++ and Python.
• Use the ROOT framework to do statistical analysis and data visualisation of large dataset.

June 2009 - September 2009
Geneva, Switzerland

Research Assistant

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

• Create a compression algorithm in C++ for turbulence data in the GReC experiment (Grands Reynolds Cryogéniques).

October 2008 - April 2009
Grenoble, France

Education

University of New South Wales

Ph.D. in Astrophysics

Tests of Fundamental Physics Using Quasar Spectroscopy

Under the guidance of Prof. John Webb

Abstract: Quasar absorption lines are used extensively in astrophysics to place constraints on cosmological models. In this thesis, we focus on the measurement of two important parameters in cosmology, the electromagnetic coupling constant, or fine-structure constant, α≡e²/(4πεℏc), and the primordial deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio, D/H. Any cosmological variation of α will cause its value to be different in the early stage of the Universe, therefore impacting the production of the primordial light elements during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We provide updated ∆α/α measurements from 280 absorption systems previously published in the literature using the non-linear least-square Voigt Profile fitting program VPFIT10. We also investigate the impact of long-range wavelength-scale distortions on those measurements. We found that long-range distortions are unlikely to explain the 4.1σ evidence for an α dipole as reported in the literature even though they do impact on the α-dipole significance. The above work led us to examine the kinematics of each absorption system in our sample. We report a correlation between the complexity of the velocity structure of Damped Lyman-α systems and the apparent position of the Lyman limit break in quasar spectra. We develop a new technique, based on this correlation, to identify suitable Damped Lyman-α systems for D/H measurements.

2013 - 2018
Sydney, Australia

Universidad de Chile

M.Sc. in Astronomy

Systematic search of deuterium absorption lines in VLT/UVES spectra of distant quasars

Under the guidance of Prof. Sebastián López & Dr. Pasquier Noterdaeme

Abstract: According to the current theory of standard Big Bang nucleosynthesis, a measurement of the primordial deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio (D/H) can provide a strong constraint on the baryonic density in the universe. Indeed, D/H depends sensitively on Ω_b, and can be thus considered as a “baryometer” of choice. However, because deuterium is easily destroyed inside stars, it is necessary to look for pristine gas (i.e. unprocessed by stars) to make a correct measurement of the primordial D/H ratio. To date, the only way to detect deuterium at high redshift (where the chance of finding pristine gas is higher) is through the absorption lines it imprints in the spectra of background quasars. However, this is observationally a challenging task and very few measurements have been performed so far. In this thesis, I present a systematic search for deuterium absorption lines in a large sample of high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio, archival spectra of quasars observed with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph mounted on the Very Large Telescope. New deuterium features have been performed and will be analyzed. I will also introduce a new python routine allowing the automatic selection and analysis of suitable candidates for the stacking method.

2010 - 2012
Santiago, Chile

Université Joseph Fourier

B.Sc. in Physics

Performance study and improvement of reconstruction algorithms for hadronic jets in ATLAS experiment

Under the guidance of Dr. Pierre-Antoine Delsart

2006 - 2009
Grenoble, France

Skills

• Programming Languages: C++, C#, IDL, Fortran, GO, Python, R, React Native, Swift, Unix shell scripting
• Python Libraries: Bokeh, DEAP, Matplotlib, mlpy, NumPy, Pandas, Plotly, PyTorch, scikit-learn, SciPy, TensorFlow
• Other Libraries: GSL, HDF5, LALsuite, LAPACK
• Markup Languages: HTML5, L^AT_EX, Markdown, Org-mode, reStructuredText
• Other Languages and Frameworks: CSS3, CUDA, Git, jQuery, Jupyter, PHP, SLURM, Sphinx, SQL, tmux
• Softwares: Emacs, IRAF, LabView, Mathematica, Matlab, MIDAS, MySQL, ROOT, Visual Studio, VPFIT
• Algorithms: χ² test, AIC, ANN, CWT, Excess Power, FFT, Gaussian Process, Genetic Algorithm, KL divergence, MCMC, RBF, SLIC, t-SNE, UMAP
• Instrumentation: Lock-in amplifier, NMOR magnetometer, PID controller, Waveform generator

• Expertise in building deep learning neural network models
• Develop Python libraries for coherent search of transient events in noisy data streams
• Manage teams of scientists for quantitative analysis of experimental research data
• Perform server-side operations and maintenance
• Use High Performance Computing facilities: Raijin, OzStar, Lawrencium, Cori, Perlmutter
• Build MySQL Database Server
• Maintain and optimize optically-pumped atomic magnetometers
• Astronomical data reduction and absorption line fitting
• Expertise in long-slit, high-resolution, and echellette spectroscopy
• Monte Carlo Markov Chain simulations

Projects

• Center for Computational Sciences and Engineering
  Efficient hyperparameter optimization of deep learning models through surrogate modeling.

  February 2021 - August 2022
  


• Scientific Data Management
  Build interpretable deep learning algorithms using statistical mechanics for geophysical research.

  February 2019 - February 2021
  


• GPS.DM
  Search for dark matter topological defects using atomic clock data from a network of 32 GPS satellites.

  August 2018 - February 2019
  


• GNOME Collaboration
  Search for axion dark matter domain walls from a network of atomic magnetometers.

  July 2016 - August 2018
  


• Urban Magnetometry
  Maximal extraction of magnetic field information in urban environment.

  January 2016 - August 2018
  


• Quasar Astronomy Research
  Fine-structure constants, long-range spectral distortions, primordial Deuterium abundances.

  July 2013 - July 2016
  

Scientific Publications

1. Hyperparameter Optimization of Generative Adversarial Network Models for High-Energy Physics Simulations
   Dumont, V.; Ju, X.; Mueller, J.
   


2. Do cities have a unique magnetic pulse?
   Dumont, V.; Bowen, T. A.; Roglans, R.; Dobler, G.; Sharma, M. S.; Karpf, A.; Bale, S. D.; Wickenbrock, A.; Zhivun, E.; Kornack, T.; Wurtele, J. S.; Budker, D.
   Journal of Applied Physics 131, 204902 (2022)
   AIP Press Release Radio Canada


3. Distributed Sensing and Machine Learning Hone Seismic Listening
   Trainor-Guitton, W.; Martin, E. R.; Rodríguez Tribaldos, V.; Taverna, N. and Dumont, V.
   Eos, 103, 4 March 2022
   


4. Search for topological defect dark matter using the global network of optical magnetometers for exotic physics searches (GNOME)
   Afach, S.; Buchler, B. C.; Budker, D.; Dailey, C.; Derevianko, A.; Dumont, V., Figueroa, N. L.; Gerhardt, I.; Grujić, Z. D.; Guo, H.; Hao, C.; Hamilton, P. S.; Hedges, M.; Jackson Kimball, D. F.; Kim, D.; Khamis, S.; Kornack, T.; Lebedev, V.; Lu, Z-T.; Masia-Roig, H.; Monroy, M.; Padniuk, M.; Palm, C. A.; Park, S. Y.; Paul, K. V.; Penaflor, A.; Peng, X.; Pospelov, M.; Preston, R.; Pustelny, S.; Scholtes, T.; Segura, P. C.; Semertzidis, Y. K.; Sheng, D.; Shin, Y. C.; Smiga, J. A.; Stalnaker, J. E.; Sulai, I.; Tandon, D.; Wang, T.; Weis, A.; Wickenbrock, A.; Wilson, T.; Wu, T.; Wurm, D.; Xiao, W.; Yang, Y.; Yu, D.; Zhang, J.
   Nature Physics volume 17, pages 1396–1401 (2021)
   


5. Measuring the fine structure constant on a white dwarf surface; a detailed analysis of Fe V absorption in G191-B2B
   Hu, J.; Webb, J. K.; Ayres, T. R.; Bainbridge, M. B.; Barrow, J. D.; Barstow, M. A.; Berengut, J. C.; Carswell, R. F.; Dumont, V.; Dzuba, V.; Flambaum, V. V.; Lee, C. C.; Reindl, N.; Preval, S. P.; Tchang-Brillet, W.-Ü. L.
   Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (23 October 2020), Volume 500, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages 1466–1475
   
   


6. Analysis method for detecting topological defect dark matter with a global magnetometer network
   Masia-Roig, H.; Smiga, J. A.; Budker, D.; Dumont, V.; Grujic, Z.; Kim, D.; Jackson Kimball, D. F.; Lebedev, V.; Monroy, M.; Pustelny, S.; Scholtes, T.; Segura, P. C.; Semertzidis, Y. K.; Chang Shin, Y.; Stalnaker, J. E.; Sulai, I.; Weis, A.; Wickenbrock, A.
   Physics of the Dark Universe (May 2020), Volume 28, 100494
   


7. Four direct measurements of the fine-structure constant 13 billion years ago
   Wilczynska, M. R.; Webb, J. K.; Bainbridge M.; Bosman, S. E. I.; Barrow, J. D.; Carswell, R. F.; Dabrowski, M. P.; Dumont, V.; Leite, A. C.; Lee, C.; Leszczynska, K.; Liske, J.; Marosek, K.; Martins, C. J.A.P.; Milakovic, D.; Molaro, P.; Pasquini, L.
   Science Advances (24 Apr 2020), Volume 6, No. 17, eaay9672
   


8. A Network of Magnetometers for Multi-Scale Urban Science and Informatics
   Bowen, T.; Zhivun, E; Wickenbrock, A; Dumont, V.; Bale S. D.; Pankow C.; Dobler, G.; Wurtele, J.S.; Budker, D.
   Geosci. Instrum. Method. Data Syst., (8 May 2019), Volume 8, Issue 1, Pages 129-138
   


9. Characterization of the Global Network of Optical Magnetometers to search for Exotic Physics (GNOME)
   Afach, S.; Budker, D.; DeCamp, G.; Dumont, V.; Grujić, Z. D.; Guo, H.; Jackson Kimball, D. F.; Kornack, T. W.; Lebedev, V.; Li, W.; Masia-Roig, H.; Nix, S.; Padniuk, M.; Palm, C. A.; Pankow, C.; Penaflor, A.; Peng, X.; Pustelny, S.; Scholtes, T.; Smiga, J. A.; Stalnaker, J. E.; Weis, A.; Wickenbrock, A.; Wurm, D.
   Physics of the Dark Universe (December 2018), Volume 22, Pages 162-180
   


10. The primordial deuterium abundance at z=2.504 from a high signal-to-noise spectrum of Q1009+2956
    Zavarygin E. O.; Webb, J. K.; Dumont, V.; Riemer-Sørensen, S.
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (21 April 2018), Volume 477, Issue 4, Pages 5536–5553
    


11. Probing the Gravitational Dependence of the Fine-Structure Constant from Observations of White Dwarf Stars
    Bainbridge, M, B.; Barstow, M. A.; Reindl, N.; Tchang-Brillet, L.; Ayres, T. R.; Webb, John K.; Barrow, J. D.; Hu, J.-; Holberg, J. B.;
    Preval, S. P.; Ubachs, W.; Dzuba, V. A.; Flambaum, V. V.; Dumont, V.; Berengut, J. C
    Universe (30 March 2017), Volume 3, Issue 2, Page 32
    


12. A precise deuterium abundance: Re-measurement of the z=3.572 absorption system towards the quasar PKS1937–101
    Riemer-Sørensen, S.; Kotuš, S.; Webb, J. K.; Ali, K.; Dumont, V.; Murphy, M. T.; Carswell, R.; Barrow, J.
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (22 March 2017), Volume 468, Issue 3, Pages 3239–3250
    


13. Modelling long-range wavelength distortions in quasar absorption echelle spectra
    Dumont, V. & Webb, J. K.
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (14 February 2017), Volume 468, Issue 2, Pages 1568-1574
    


14. A robust deuterium abundance; Re-measurement of the z=3.256 absorption system towards the quasar PKS1937-1009
    Riemer-Sørensen, S.; Webb, J. K.; Crighton, N.; Dumont, V.; Ali, K.; Kotuš, S.; Bainbridge, M.; Murphy, M. T.; Carswell, R.
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (14 January 2015), Volume 447, Issue 3, Pages 2925- 2936
    


15. Deuterium at high-redshift: Primordial abundance in the zabs = 2.621 damped Ly-alpha system towards CTQ247
    Noterdaeme, P.; López, S.; Dumont, V; Ledoux, C.; Molaro, P.; Petitjean, P.
    Astronomy & Astrophysics (8 June 2012), Volume 542, Article L33
    

1. A Self-Supervised Approach to Reconstruction in Sparse X-Ray Computed Tomography
   Mendoza, R.; Nguyen, M.; Zhu, J. W.; Dumont, V.; Perciano, T.; Mueller, J.; Ganapati, V.
   NeurIPS 2022 Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop
   


2. HYPPO: A Surrogate-Based Multi-Level Parallelism Tool for Hyperparameter Optimization
   Dumont, V.; Garner, C.; Trivedi, A.; Jones, C.; Ganapati, V.; Mueller, J.; Perciano, T.; Kiran, M.; Day, M.
   2021 IEEE/ACM Workshop on Machine Learning in High Performance Computing Environments (MLHPC), 2021, pp. 81-93
   


3. Deep Learning on Real Geophysical Data: A Case Study for Distributed Acoustic Sensing Research
   Dumont, V.; Rodríguez Tribaldos, V.; Ajo-Franklin, J.; Wu, K.
   NeurIPS "Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences" workshop, 30 October 2020
   


4. Deep Learning for Surface Wave Identification in Distributed Acoustic Sensing Data
   Dumont, V.; Rodríguez Tribaldos, V.; Ajo-Franklin, J.; Wu, K.
   2020 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), 2020, pp. 1293-1300
   


5. Primordial deuterium abundance at z=2.504 towards Q1009+2956
   Zavarygin E. O.; Webb, J. K.; Riemer-Sørensen, S; Dumont, V..
   Journal of Physics: Conference Series (1 June 2018), Volume 1038, International Conference PhysicA.SPb/2017 24–26 October 2017, Saint-Petersburg, Russian Federation
   

1. Combining Ambient Noise and Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) Deployed on Dark Fiber Networks for High-resolution Imaging at the Basin Scale
   Rodríguez Tribaldos, V.; Lindsey, N.; Dou, S.; Ulrich, C.; Robertson, M.; Dong, B.; Dumont, V.; Wu, K.; Monga, I.; Tracy, C.; Ajo-Franklin, J.
   American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2020


2. Progress in dark matter search with the global positioning system
   Dailey, C.; Roberts, B.; Dumont, V.; Khan, I.; Panelli, G; Blewitt, G.; Derevianko, A.
   Bulletin of the American Physical Society, (14 April 2019), APS April Meeting 2019, Volume 64, Number 3


3. Assessing the dependency of the fine structure constant on gravity using hot DA white dwarfs
   Barstow, M.; Ayres, T. R.; Bainbridge, M.; Barrow, J.; Berengut, J.; Burleigh, M.; Casewell, S.; Dapra, M.; Dougan, D.; Dumont, V.; Dzuba, V.; Flambaum, V.; Hu, J.; Holberg, J. B.; Joyce, S.; Nave, G.; Preval, S.; Reindl, N.; Salumbides, E.; Ubachs, W.; Webb, . K.
   HST Proposal. Cycle 24, ID. #14791, June 2016


4. Impact of long-range wavelength-scale distortion on fine-structure constant measurements
   Dumont, V.; Webb, J. K.
   International Astronomy Union, General Assembly, (August 2015), Meeting #29, id.2251301


5. Australia in the era of global astronomy: The decadal plan for Australian astronomy 2016–2025
   Member of Working Group 1.1 - Galaxies and Cosmology
   Australian Academy of Science (July 2015)

Participations

1. Advanced Research Directions in AI for Science and Security
   University of California Davis, Davis, USA
   July 26-28, 2022


2. HEP Machine Learning Weekly Group Meeting
   Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA (attended remotely)
   March 3, 2022

   
   


3. 2022 Computing Sciences Area Postdoc Symposium
   Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA (attended remotely)
   February 8-10, 2022

   
   


4. International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
   America's Center, St. Louis, USA (attended remotely)
   November 14-19, 2021

   
   


5. DAS Research Coordination Network: ML working group
   Taking place virtually
   September 16, 2021

   


6. SciDAC-4: HEP Data Analytics on HPC
   Taking place virtually
   July 2, 2021

   


7. SEG | AGU Advances in Distributed Sensing for Geophysics Workshop
   Taking place virtually
   February 8-9, 2021

   


8. DESI Collaboration Seminar
   Taking place virtually
   January 20, 2021

   


9. LBNL/CCSE Group Seminar
   Taking place virtually
   January 7, 2021

   


10. IEEE International Conference on Big Data
    Taking place virtually
    December 10-13, 2020

    
    


11. LBNL/SDM Group Seminar
    Taking place virtually
    December 7, 2020

    


12. NeurIPS | Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop
    Taking place virtually
    December 6-12, 2020

    


13. Frontiers in Machine Learning for the Physical Sciences
    Taking place virtually
    October 26, 2020


14. Conference on Data Analysis (CoDA)
    Eldorado Hotel, Santa Fe, USA
    February 25-27, 2020

    


15. RISE Camp 2019
    International House, UC Berkeley, USA
    October 17-18, 2019


16. PyTorch Developer Conference
    The Midway, San Francisco, USA
    October 10, 2019


17. TechCrunch Disrupt SF
    Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA
    October 2-4, 2019


18. Oracle OpenWorld
    Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA
    September 16-19, 2019


19. AI for Science Town Hall
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
    September 11-12, 2019


20. Deep Learning for Science School
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
    July 15-19, 2019


21. GPUs for Science Day
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
    July 2-3, 2019


22. LBNL/SDM Group Seminar
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, USA
    January 11, 2019

    


23. Intelligence Community Academic Research Symposium
    The National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, USA
    September 25-27, 2018

    


24. Data Science Workshop
    Garré Winery, Livermore, USA
    August 7-8, 2018

    


25. Weekly Seminar
    Department of Physics, University of Reno, USA
    July 25, 2018

    


26. Bay Area NSF Innovation Corps training
    Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, USA
    July 16-23, 2018


27. 2018 Multi-INT Technical Exchange: Exploring Artificial Intelligence for Space Applications
    Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, USA
    June 27-28, 2018

    


28. HIM Weekly Seminar
    Helmholtz-Institute Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany
    September 8, 2017

    


29. 5th Workshop on Optically-Pumped Magnetometers (WOPM)
    University of Fribourg, Switzerland
    August 21-22, 2017

    


30. GNOME Collaboration Annual Meeting
    University of Fribourg, Switzerland
    August 20, 2017


31. BIDS Tea Seminar
    Berkeley Institute for Data Science, UC Berkeley, USA
    October 18, 2016

    


32. Varying Constants and Fundamental Cosmology – VARCOSMOFUN’16
    Maritime University of Szczecin, Poland
    September 12-17, 2016

    


33. GNOME Collaboration Data Analysis Bootcamp
    Northwestern University, Evanston, USA
    August 17-19, 2016


34. Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Annual Meeting
    The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
    July 3-8, 2016


35. SPIE Photonics West
    Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA
    February 13-18, 2016


36. Oracle OpenWorld
    Moscone Center, San Francisco, USA
    October 25-29, 2015


37. Guest Seminar
    University of the Pacific, Stockton, USA
    October 13, 2015

    


38. International Astronomical Union, XXIX General Assembly
    Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
    August 3-14, 2015
    

    


39. AIP Postgraduate Award Competition
    University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
    October 9, 2014

    


40. Women in Astronomy Workshop
    Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
    August 28-29, 2014


41. Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Annual Meeting
    Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
    July 20-25, 2014


42. ITA Weekly Seminar
    Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, Norway
    June 10, 2014

    


43. AusGO/AAO Observational Techniques Workshop
    Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) Headquarters, North Ryde, Sydney, Australia
    April 1-4, 2014


44. Decadal Plan for Australian Astronomy Town Hall - Galaxies and Cosmology Working Group
    Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) Headquarters, North Ryde, Sydney, Australia
    March 17, 2014


45. Astroinformatics 2013: Knowledge from Data
    CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science (CASS) Headquarters, Marsfield, Sydney, Australia
    December 9-13, 2013


46. Australia Institute of Physics (AIP) Industry Day
    Australian Institute of Physics NSW Branch, Lindfield Site, Sydney, Australia
    November 11, 2013

    


47. FunnelWeb Workshop
    University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
    August 7, 2013


48. Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Annual Meeting
    Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
    July 7-12, 2013


49. Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) Harley Wood Winter School
    Newhaven Hall, Phillip Island, Australia
    July 4-7, 2013


50. IAU XIII Latin American Regional Meeting
    Centro de Convenciones y Exposiciones, Morélia, Mexico
    November 8-12, 2010

    


51. Weekly Journal Club
    Department of Astronomy, University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
    July 13, 2010

    


52. Workshop Metaphysics of Science
    Pierre Mendès-France University, Grenoble, France
    December 1-2, 2008

Photography

Apart from being an avid pianist and hiker, I also enjoy photography a lot. Below are some of my most favorite pictures taken over the years. I am currently using a Nikon D7200 camera with a Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR lens. That being said, I really like how pictures are rendered with the iPhone X although I'm also starting to become an even bigger fan of the camera performance from the Samsung Galaxy.

Travels

One of my main passions in life is traveling and exploring different cultures and societies. I started traveling fairly late, after getting a scholarship to do my Master's in Chile. This was a dream come true and the first time I was leaving my family to go and live at the end of the world, as Chilean like to call their land. I stayed there for over two years and got to explore South America and its culture. This gave me a taste for discovering new places around the world and I haven't stopped doing just that since then. Every stay has been for me an opportunity to experience different standards of living and have a deeper appreciation for the social, economic and environmental issues faced by each society. I also truly believe that engaging in the challenges some communities might have and taking lessons from the solutions they may come up with could solve decade-long problems in other regions of the world. Sometimes, there is no need to look for a solution, sometimes the only thing we need is to look out the window and see what others do... Below is a world map showing all the flights I took around the world over the last decade (code available here). It has been an amazing journey so far!