Keaton Burns
Principal Research Scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolKeaton Burns is a Principal Research Scientist at MIT with 13 years of experience developing numerical methods and scientific computing tools for fluid dynamics. He leads development of the open-source spectral PDE solver Dedalus, contributing core coordinate, basis, and transform components that enable Jacobi polynomial and complex Fourier representations. His work applies spectral methods to problems across astrophysical, geophysical, and biological fluids, bridging theoretical applied math with production-grade scientific software. A PhD physicist with advanced mathematics training from Cambridge and degrees from UC Berkeley, he combines rigorous analysis with hands-on code design. Outside of MIT he maintains active research collaborations at the Flatiron Institute, reflecting a sustained focus on reproducible, community-oriented computational science.
13 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor's degree, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics, Bachelor's degree, Applied Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics at University of California, BerkeleyPhD, Physics, PhD, Physics at Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMaster of Advanced Study, Mathematics, Master of Advanced Study, Mathematics at University of Cambridge
Github Skills (14)
spec10
numerical-methods10
spectrum10
python10
spectra10
scientific-computing10
spectral10
frequency-analysis9
f9
linear-algebra9
partial-differential-equations9
fourier-transform9
cprogramming-language5
c-language5
Programming languages (9)
Github contributions (5)
DedalusProject/dedalus
May 2013 - Dec 2022
A flexible framework for solving PDEs with modern spectral methods.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:9 releases, 40 reviews, 1586 commits in 9 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Keaton was actively involved in developing and maintaining the core codebase of the Dedalus project. Their work focused on implementing and refactoring core functionalities, with a particular emphasis on the "coords" module related to defining and handling coordinate systems for solving PDEs using spectral methods. They implemented new classes and refined existing components within the "coords" module, including those for coordinate systems. Additionally, the user's contributions touched the basis and transform components of the system, working towards the integration of Jacobi polynomials and complex Fourier bases and associated transformations.
solvingflexible-frameworkfinite-element-analysisfenicspde-solver
kburns/dedalus
May 2020 - Apr 2024
Dedalus is a flexible framework for solving partial differential equations using spectral methods. It's open-source, written primarily in Python, and MPI-parallelized.
Contributions:9 pushes, 20 branches in 3 years 11 months
pythonmpiflexible-frameworkdynamical-systemspde-solver
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