Duncan Macleod
Senior Research Software Engineer at Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolDuncan Macleod is a Senior Research Software Engineer with 16 years' experience building scientific software for gravitational-wave research, currently based at Cardiff University and contributing to the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. He specialises in Python for data access, signal processing and visualization, combined with web development (JavaScript/jQuery, CSS/SASS, Django) and open-source packaging and distribution. Duncan pairs academic rigour—a PhD in Astrophysics and a background in mathematical physics—with practical engineering, contributing to high-profile projects like Astropy, Matplotlib, Conda and HTCondor. His work spans build systems, dependency management, test automation and technical documentation, and he has helped keep core tooling reliable for large-scale scientific workflows. Notably, he contributes to PyCBC—used in historic gravitational-wave discoveries—while maintaining infrastructure and packaging across conda-forge and other ecosystems.
16 years of coding experience
4 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astrophysics, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Astrophysics at Cardiff University / Prifysgol CaerdyddMaster of Physics (MPhys), Mathematical Physics, 1st class, with honours, Master of Physics (MPhys), Mathematical Physics, 1st class, with honours at The University of Edinburgh
English
Stackoverflow
1,055reputation
49kreached
7answers
14questions
Github Skills (50)
data-visualizations10
conda-build10
conda-forge10
restructuredtext10
python10
package-management10
astronomy10
sphinx10
matplotlib10
testing10
configuration-management10
bash10
data-visualisation10
conda10
cmake10
Programming languages (19)
Github contributions (5)
gwastro/pycbc
Jun 2013 - Jan 2023
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:
Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:12 reviews, 38 commits, 53 PRs in 9 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Duncan's commits primarily focus on enhancing the documentation for the PyCBC project. This includes adding comprehensive Sphinx documentation, creating pages for command-line scripts, and improving the overall organization and clarity of the documentation. They rebased installation instructions and updated the documentation contents, demonstrating a commitment to providing clear and accessible information for users.
pythongwastrosignal-processingneutron-starparameters
conda/conda-build
Jun 2019 - Aug 2022
Commands and tools for building conda packages
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 5 commits, 9 PRs in 3 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Duncan made several contributions focused on improving the `conda-build` package. They added dependencies, fixed typos in configuration files, and optimized code for performance. Specifically, they modified metadata and inspection modules and addressed a variable shadowing issue. Their work reflects efforts to enhance the stability and efficiency of the package building process.
conda-packagescondapackagingconda-buildpackage-management
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