Ben Bales
Staff Data Scientist
Sevierville, Tennessee, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBen Bales is a Staff Data Scientist with 13 years of experience applying rigorous statistical and software engineering techniques to products and research, currently at Riot Games. With a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and a background in electrical engineering, he bridges advanced probabilistic modeling and production analytics, having driven inference automation and AD library optimizations as a Stan core contributor and former Columbia postdoc. His open-source work on the Stan Math and Stan repos improved autodiff performance and added RNG and array functionality, while documentation contributions to the high-profile stan-dev/example-models make complex ODE interfaces more approachable. At Riot he scaled data science solutions from research prototypes to production, pairing deep numerical expertise with pragmatic engineering. Colleagues rely on him for both careful mathematical correctness and the ability to ship maintainable code that speeds up teammates’ workflows.
12 years of coding experience
6 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Santa BarbaraBachelor's degree, Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bachelor's degree, Electrical and Electronics Engineering at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Github Skills (27)
bayesian-statistics10
autodiff10
c-language10
probabilistic-programming10
ode10
mathematics10
solver10
mathics10
math10
stat10
distributions10
statistic10
maths10
bayesian10
ode-solver10
Programming languages (10)
Github contributions (5)
stan-dev/math
Apr 2017 - Jul 2021
The Stan Math Library is a C++ template library for automatic differentiation of any order using forward, reverse, and mixed modes. It includes a range of built-in functions for probabilistic modeling, linear algebra, and equation solving.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Library Contributor
Back-end Developer & Library ContributorContributions:834 reviews, 1327 commits, 233 PRs in 4 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily contributed to the Stan Math Library, focusing on the implementation and modification of statistical functions, specifically related to the von Mises distribution. They improved the vectorized lccdf function, addressing a specific issue and ensuring correct behavior. The user also worked on several other probability functions such as gamma and exponential with optimizations for the autodiff computations. Their contributions demonstrate a focus on improving the mathematical performance of the library.
automatic-differentiationprobabilistic-modelingsundialsmodestemplate-library
stan-dev/example-models
Apr 2020 - Mar 2021
Example models for Stan
Role in this project:Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:28 reviews, 44 commits, 18 PRs in 10 months
Contributions summary:Ben's commits primarily focused on updating and expanding documentation within the `stan-dev/example-models` repository. These updates include adding detailed function interface texts, model code, and data examples. The user also corrected the contents of existing data files and updated links. The work concentrates on explaining the use of the new ODE interface within the context of example models.
stan
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.