Bethany Nicholson
Principal Member Of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories
Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolBethany Nicholson is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories with 11 years of experience applying advanced optimization, numerical methods, and Python-based modeling to process systems engineering problems. She holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon and has a track record of contributing to foundational open-source projects like Pyomo and the IDAES framework, where she has improved DAE handling, discretization tooling, and core mixer components. Her work blends research-grade algorithm development with production-ready solver and test improvements, enabling trustworthy simulation and optimization of PDE/DAE systems. Based in Albuquerque, she brings both national-lab rigor and practical industry experience from internships at Air Products and Argonne, and is known for turning complex mathematical models into maintainable code and reproducible results.
11 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
BS, Chemical Engineering, BS, Chemical Engineering at Illinois Institute of TechnologyPhD, Chemical Engineering, PhD, Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University
Stackoverflow
2,788reputation
144kreached
137answers
0questions
python
top-5%
Github Skills (18)
chemical-engineering10
python10
system10
sys10
numerical-optimization10
testing9
pyomo9
process-modeling9
process-model9
documentation8
linear-programming6
optimization6
modeling6
mathematical-optimization6
constraint6
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
Pyomo/pyomo
Jan 2015 - Jan 2023
An object-oriented algebraic modeling language in Python for structured optimization problems.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:4 releases, 932 reviews, 1092 commits in 8 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Bethany contributed to the Pyomo project by implementing and testing features related to DAE (Differential Algebraic Equations) and other optimizations. The commits include improvements to error messages, tests for the simulator and related expression checkers, adding tests and documentation. Furthermore, the user worked on improving the performance of the code by adding the option to calculate the best objective bounds and also worked on enabling constraints to the code for the solver.
pythonnonlinear-programmingstructuredgurobiproblems
IDAES/idaes-pse
Nov 2018 - Nov 2022
The IDAES Process Systems Engineering Framework
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:126 reviews, 81 commits, 21 PRs in 4 years
Contributions summary:Bethany's commits primarily involve modifications to Python files within the `idaes/models` directory, suggesting a focus on back-end development within the IDAES framework. Specifically, the commits include integrating changes from the master branch and refactoring code within the `mixer.py` file. These actions indicate the user is involved in developing and maintaining core components of the process systems engineering framework, particularly the mixer block, which is essential for simulating process flows.
chemical-engineeringengineeringelectrical-engineeringprocess-modelingenergy-system
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