Don聽Neill
Software Group Lead at Caltech
California, United States
Summary
馃懁
Senior馃帗
Top SchoolDon Neill is a software group lead at Caltech with 11+ years of experience building and directing software for astronomical instruments and observatory operations. He combines deep low-level programming skills (C, Fortran, awk, shell) and systems administration with modern tooling (Python, Java, GUI and pipeline development) to deliver data reduction pipelines and operator interfaces for instruments like KCWI. His career bridges research and engineering鈥攕panning postdoctoral science on UV surveys and supernova host studies to long-running responsibilities for calibration, networking, and instrument software at major observatories. Based in California and self-described as an "astro-nerd," he brings a rare blend of domain astrophysics knowledge and hands-on systems craftsmanship that keeps complex observatory operations both scientifically rigorous and operationally robust.
11 years of coding experience
27 years of employment as a software developer
BS, Astronomy, BS, Astronomy at University of MichiganPhD, M Phil, MS, Astrophysics, PhD, M Phil, MS, Astrophysics at Columbia University
Github Skills (26)
python10
astronomy10
machine-learning10
reduction9
extraction9
sed9
data-extraction9
broker8
pipeline8
transient8
spectral8
plot8
data-platform7
energy7
vega-lite6
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
scizen9/donidl
May 2015 - Oct 2024
Contributions:55 pushes, 1 branch in 9 years 7 months
CaltechOpticalObservatories/wdl
Jan 2024 - Mar 2025
waveform definition language for Archons
Contributions:10 reviews, 12 PRs, 19 pushes in 1 year 2 months
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