Karl Smith
Instructor at KarlMSmith.com
Seattle, Washington, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolKarl Smith is a multidisciplinary maker and educator in Seattle who blends 13 years of software and computational chemistry R&D with a recent career pivot to bespoke garment design, patternmaking, and tailoring—specializing in leather, denim, and heavy fabrics. As owner of KarlMSmith.com he designs and constructs custom commissions, and he teaches introductory sewing at Seattle Central College, where he also studied Apparel Design and Development. Earlier in his career he was a senior software engineer and research scientist who built data pipelines, Java and Python tools, and visualization extensions for geophysical and computational chemistry projects at institutions like the University of Washington and Tripos. He is methodical, detail-oriented, and comfortable moving between low-level scientific code and hands-on studio craft, a combination that informs both his technical debugging and his bespoke pattern solutions. Notably, he replaced legacy graphics in Ferret with modern Qt/Cairo delegates and enabled Python integration for complex geophysical workflows—an example of his knack for bridging legacy systems and modern toolchains. Based in Seattle, he brings an uncommon mix of academic rigor, production software experience, and tangible craft skill to teaching and custom design.
13 years of coding experience
35 years of employment as a software developer
Ph.D., Chemistry (Organic Synthesis), Ph.D., Chemistry (Organic Synthesis) at University of California, BerkeleyApparel Design and Development, Apparel Design and Development at Seattle Central Collegedouble B.S., Chemistry, Mathematics, double B.S., Chemistry, Mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin
Github Skills (25)
socat10
python10
carbon-emissions10
forge10
renewable-energy10
climate-change10
noaa10
ferret10
risk-assessment10
cli10
dashboard9
conda9
smithy9
conda-forge7
directories7
Programming languages (6)
Github contributions (5)
NOAA-PMEL/PyFerret
Feb 2016 - Jun 2020
The PyFerret program and Python module from NOAA/PMEL
Contributions:17 releases, 1125 commits, 20 PRs in 4 years 5 months
pythonrisk-assessmentnoaapython-modulecarbon-emissions
karlmsmith/SocatDashboard
Apr 2016 - Jun 2020
Software for working with the SOCAT collection of datasets
Contributions:535 pushes, 12 branches in 4 years 3 months
data-managementdata-analysisdata-processingdatasetdatasets
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