Ben Norman
Solar Technician at Alaska Solar LLC
Anchorage, Alaska, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolBen Norman is a data scientist and engineer with a decade of experience applying data-driven methods to urban planning and energy systems, currently working as a solar technician in Anchorage. He has built ETL pipelines and back-end data tooling for public-utility datasets (notably contributing DBF readers and converters to the widely used PUDL project) and modeled real-estate and zoning dynamics to inform land acquisition decisions. His background spans machine learning for 3D generative design, urban data engineering for NYC planning, and hands-on renewable energy deployment, giving him a rare blend of field experience and production data engineering. Trained at Cornell and Cornell Tech, he combines rigorous CS foundations with practical skills in leadership, outdoor risk management, and community planning engagement.
10 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
High School Diploma, High School Diploma at Marin AcademyBachelor of Science (B.S.) Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Computer Science at Cornell UniversityMaster of Engineering - MEng, Master of Engineering - MEng at Cornell TechOrganizational Leadership Risk Managment First Aid Outdoor Wilderness Skills, Organizational Leadership Risk Managment First Aid Outdoor Wilderness Skills at NOLS
Github Skills (7)
etl10
data-transformation10
pandas10
python10
data-engineering10
sql9
parquet8
Programming languages (8)
Github contributions (5)
catalyst-cooperative/pudl
Aug 2021 - Jan 2023
The Public Utility Data Liberation Project provides analysis-ready energy system data to climate advocates, researchers, policymakers, and journalists.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Data Engineer
Back-end Developer & Data EngineerContributions:698 reviews, 248 commits, 194 PRs in 1 year 5 months
Contributions summary:Ben primarily focused on enhancing the data ingestion and processing capabilities within the repository. They implemented a DBF reader for handling legacy data and updated column mappings for specific years within the EIA 860 dataset. Further contributions include developing a converter for DBF files, incorporating unit tests for the converter, and modifying the code to include a nuclear unit id in the generation fuel table. These actions indicate a focus on improving data extraction, cleaning, and transformation processes.
climateddjpythonghgferc
bendnorman/bendnorman.github.io
Jan 2018 - Aug 2021
portfolio
Contributions:5 PRs, 39 pushes, 7 branches in 3 years 7 months
javascriptreact
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