Ken Youens-clark
Sr Scientific Developer at Wheeler Lab
Tucson, Arizona, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolKen Youens-clark is a senior scientific developer with nearly three decades of programming experience and a 13-year focus on computational biology, currently building high-performance Rust tools and Elm interfaces for the Wheeler Lab at the University of Arizona. He is the author of three technical books (Command-Line Rust; Mastering Python for Bioinformatics; Tiny Python Projects) and translates that teaching into weekly mentoring and course instruction. His work spans the full software lifecycle—from database design and ETL to cloud workflow engineering and performant, parallel sequence-processing tools like sufr and Tallyman. Comfortable across Rust, Python, Elm, Perl, and Unix tooling, he combines research-grade rigor with production-ready engineering, having modernized DNAnexus tooling and reimplemented critical genomic data services. Colleagues rely on him for clear documentation and reproducible pipelines; less obvious is his knack for turning command-line utilities and small educational projects into enduring developer resources and training materials.
13 years of coding experience
25 years of employment as a software developer
The University of ArizonaBachelor's degree English Language and Literature General, Bachelor's degree English Language and Literature General at University of North TexasNorthwest Rankin High School
Stackoverflow
29reputation
0reached
2answers
0questions
Github Skills (25)
strings10
python10
text-manipulation10
command-line-interface10
argparse10
fileio10
command-line10
file-processing10
file-handling10
rust10
file-access10
cli10
test-driven-design9
regex9
testing8
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
kyclark/tiny_python_projects
May 2019 - Dec 2021
Code for Tiny Python Projects (Manning, 2020, ISBN 1617297518). Learning Python through test-driven development of games and puzzles.
Role in this project:
Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:508 commits, 3 PRs, 413 pushes in 2 years 7 months
Contributions summary:Ken contributed to several "tiny python projects" related to learning Python through test-driven development, including the creation of programs for encoding/decoding Morse code, finding anagrams, generating a "runny babbit" phrase, and assisting with a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Their commits demonstrate proficiency in writing programs, using argparse for command-line arguments, implementing logic for string manipulation, and incorporating external libraries like `textwrap` and `emoji`. This work showcases a focus on problem-solving and creating functional Python scripts.
pythongamesisbnmanningtest-driven
kyclark/command-line-rust
Mar 2020 - Feb 2022
Code for Command-Line Rust (O'Reilly, 2022, ISBN 9781098109417) https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/command-line-rust/9781098109424/
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:190 commits, 1 PR, 198 pushes in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Ken appears to be contributing to a command-line Rust project, likely developing a suite of command-line tools. They are implementing new tools (e.g., `crowsnest`, `wc`, `head`, `grep`, `cat`, `ls`, `tail`, `cut`, `rot13`, `hangman`) that demonstrate skills in parsing command-line arguments with `clap`, file I/O, and string manipulation. The user's work also includes implementing utility functions for tasks such as counting lines and bytes in files and providing different output formatters.
isbnoreillyrustcommand-lineprogramming-language
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