Derek Hollenbeck
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University of California, Merced
Modesto-Merced Area United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolDerek Hollenbeck is a postdoctoral research fellow and manager with eight years of experience applying mechatronics, fluid dynamics, and control theory to real-world methane detection and mitigation problems. He earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Merced, where his dissertation centered on drone-based detection, localization, and quantification of methane emissions and led hands-on field campaigns using sUAS, TDLAS, LIDAR, and custom sensor stacks. At UC Merced he now builds and validates digital twin frameworks to simulate emissions across energy, agriculture, and waste sectors, translating complex CFD and dynamical-systems models into practical mitigation strategies. Derek combines experimental rigor with software and simulation skills (MATLAB, Python, OpenFOAM, Fusion) and a track record of collaborating with industry and regulators to move research into deployable solutions. A less obvious strength is his fluency across hardware-to-model workflows—designing embedded systems and field experiments while supervising multidisciplinary teams to close the loop from data collection to policy-relevant insights.
8 years of coding experience
7 years of employment as a software developer
Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science at Merced CollegeDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Mechanical Engineering at University of California, MercedAssociate’s Degree, Mathematics and Physical Science, Associate’s Degree, Mathematics and Physical Science at Lassen Community College
Github Skills (7)
ros8
cube7
station7
autopilot6
open-source4
studio4
missionplanner4
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
dhollenbeck1/LEAP-FROG
Jan 2022 - Oct 2022
Contributions:64 commits, 53 pushes, 1 branch in 9 months
dhollenbeck1/collectiveForaging
Mar 2018 - Oct 2019
for NSF IAS project on collective foraging
Contributions:4 PRs, 20 pushes, 5 branches in 1 year 6 months
iasnsfforagingcollective
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.