Cameron Hummels
Research Scientist at Caltech
Pasadena, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolCameron Hummels is a research scientist and public-education leader at Caltech with 15 years of experience modeling galaxy formation and evolution using high-performance computational methods. He directs Caltech Astronomy’s outreach program, producing over 50 events and reaching 20,000 attendees annually, and has served as scientific advisor on feature films—bridging rigorous research with accessible storytelling. A longtime contributor to the yt-project, he has improved volume rendering and coordinate handling to support visualization of large astrophysical datasets. Cameron’s background combines a PhD in astrophysics with undergraduate training in computer science and math, enabling him to build and optimize scientific software (including profiling and parallel-processing notebooks for data-science training). He is equally at home presenting at dark-sky festivals or developing backend tools that let researchers explore the cosmos at scale.
15 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
MA, Astronomy, MA, Astronomy at Wesleyan UniversityPhD, Astrophysics, PhD, Astrophysics at Columbia University in the City of New YorkBA, Computer Science, Astronomy, Mathematics, BA, Computer Science, Astronomy, Mathematics at Pomona College
French, Russian
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
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Github Skills (11)
data-visualizations10
volume-rendering10
parallel-processing10
data-visualization10
data-visualisation10
object-oriented-programming10
python10
scientific-computing10
profiling10
numpy10
jupyter-notebook9
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
yt-project/yt
Dec 2010 - Aug 2022
Main yt repository
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:119 reviews, 1317 commits, 53 PRs in 11 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Cameron's commits primarily focused on implementing and improving functionality within the volume rendering module of the yt project. They added a variety of features, including improved coordinate system handling and a system for handling and displaying images. Additionally, they added and incorporated tools for handling volume rendering related tasks to support the rendering of complex and larger datasets in a project used by the astrophysics community.
pythondatafinite-element-analysisgeophysicsnuclear-engineering
LSSTC-DSFP/LSSTC-DSFP-Sessions
Apr 2017 - Apr 2017
Lecture slides, Jupyter notebooks, and other material from the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program
Role in this project:Data Scientist
Data ScientistContributions:6 commits, 4 PRs in 2 days
Contributions summary:Cameron contributed notebooks and code related to object-oriented programming (OOP) exercises within the context of a data science fellowship program. The primary focus appears to be on creating and manipulating a `Galaxy` class, including methods for time evolution. Further contributions included a notebook on profiling and optimizing code, and a notebook on parallel processing techniques for searching lists.
jupyter-booksciencedata-scienceastrophysicsjupyter-notebook
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