Lorena A. Barba
Software Engineer at The George Washington University
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Summary
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RockstarLorena A. Barba is a software engineer and computational scientist with 13 years of experience blending engineering pedagogy, research-grade numerical computing, and clear technical communication. Based in Washington, DC, she contributes to open-source educational projects—especially Jupyter notebook courses on numerical methods and computational fluid dynamics—where she focuses on making complex PDE solvers and aerodynamic concepts accessible and reproducible. Her work spans back-end code improvements, visualization utilities, and careful technical writing for projects like AeroPython and the well-regarded "12 Steps to Navier–Stokes" notebooks. A practiced educator, she reorganizes code and explanations to match learners’ mental models, adding comments, refined plots, and supplementary media to deepen understanding. Beyond code, she brings a distinctive blend of academic rigor and cultural curiosity—she’s a jazz buff and font nerd—informing her precise, readable documentation and teaching materials.
12 years of coding experience
Github Skills (17)
cfml10
python10
matplotlib10
technical-writing10
numpy10
cfc10
fluid-dynamics10
cfengine10
jupyter-notebook10
documentation10
mathematical9
numerical-methods9
partial-differential-equations9
modeling9
aerodynamics9
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
barbagroup/AeroPython
Jan 2014 - Jun 2020
Classical Aerodynamics of potential flow using Python and Jupyter Notebooks
Role in this project:
Technical Writer
Technical WriterContributions:168 commits, 17 PRs, 78 pushes in 6 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Lorena's commits primarily focus on adding, editing, and polishing lesson content within the "aeropython" repository, particularly for the Python Crash Course and Source & Sink modules. They made revisions to text, corrected typos, and refined the presentation. They also added new content and provided image references.
pythonaerodynamicsjupyter-notebookpotential-flownotebooks
numerical-mooc/numerical-mooc
Jun 2014 - Aug 2018
A course in numerical methods with Python for engineers and scientists: currently 5 learning modules, with student assignments.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:342 commits, 11 PRs, 59 pushes in 4 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Lorena primarily focused on improving a notebook related to a physics problem, the 1D convection equation, in the practical numerical methods course. Their contributions include rearranging the code to be closer to the explanation, adding comments, adjusting the plot visualization, and refining the explanation of the model and related concepts. The user also implemented functions to visualize their numerical solutions, which helped them understand, assess, and modify code related to the solution.
scientistspythonode-solverpde-solverpartial-differential-equations
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