Christopher Biwer
Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolChristopher Biwer is a scientist and seasoned gravitational-wave software developer with 13 years of experience, currently based at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a core developer on the influential PyCBC toolkit used since the first direct detection of gravitational waves. His work spans back-end development, data-finding hacks for legacy frames, and bug fixes that improve coincidence and postprocessing routines, reflecting a practical focus on reliable, production-grade analysis pipelines. Trained with a PhD in Physics from Syracuse University and a BS in Applied Mathematics and Physics, he blends deep domain expertise in LIGO/Virgo analyses with hands-on software engineering. Uncommonly, his background includes building real-time multi-observatory alert systems and laboratory biogeochemical modeling, showing a breadth that connects instrumentation, modeling, and data systems.
13 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science - BS, Applied Mathematics and Physics, Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science - BS, Applied Mathematics and Physics, Magna Cum Laude at University of Wisconsin-MilwaukeeDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Physics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Physics at Syracuse University
English, German
Github Skills (6)
python10
back-end-development10
scientific-computing9
signal-processing8
astronomy8
data-analysis7
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
gwastro/pycbc
Feb 2014 - May 2019
Core package to analyze gravitational-wave data, find signals, and study their parameters. This package was used in the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GW150914), and is used in the ongoing analysis of LIGO/Virgo data.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:662 commits, 410 PRs, 209 pushes in 5 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Christopher made significant contributions to the pycbc package, focusing on the ahope module. Their work involved modifying the weekly_ahope script by removing and reorganizing arguments in the set_injection_workflow call. They also fixed bugs related to the ordering of interferometers in the coincidence_utils.py module and corrected a typo in the postprocessing preparation function. Furthermore, the user made substantial changes related to the data find module, including implementing a hack to process V1 S6 frames.
pythongwastrosignal-processingneutron-starparameters
lanl/spotlight
Jun 2018 - Aug 2022
Optimization and analysis package
Contributions:7 releases, 322 commits, 155 PRs in 4 years 3 months
analysis-packageoptimization
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