Michael Mitchell
Geophysicist at Zanskar
Mountain View, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolMichael Mitchell is a geophysicist with a decade of experience combining academic research and applied engineering, currently based in Mountain View, California. He holds a PhD in Geophysics from UBC with an MPhil from Cambridge and a BE from Colorado School of Mines, and completed a Mendenhall postdoc at the USGS studying volcanic systems. Michael blends numerical simulation and field-focused instrumentation work—contributing backend development to the widely used SimPEG Python library by implementing analytic EM solutions and survey analysis tools. In industry roles he has developed magnetotelluric modelling capabilities and magnetic-field hardware for real-time detection systems, demonstrating fluency from inverse theory to hardware testing. He is comfortable translating advanced geophysical inversion techniques into production-ready code and sensors, and often bridges gaps between open-source scientific software and commercial workflows. A not-obvious strength is his track record of refactoring legacy geophysics code to improve accuracy while adding practical features that enable both research and operational use.
10 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Philosophy - MPhil, Earth Sciences, Geophysics, Master of Philosophy - MPhil, Earth Sciences, Geophysics at University of CambridgeDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, Geophysics, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Geophysics at The University of British ColumbiaBachelor of Engineering - BE, Geophysical Engineering, Bachelor of Engineering - BE, Geophysical Engineering at Colorado School of Mines
Github Skills (5)
el10
geophysics10
python10
scientific-computing10
modeling10
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
simpeg/simpeg
May 2016 - Jan 2021
Simulation and Parameter Estimation in Geophysics - A python package for simulation and gradient based parameter estimation in the context of geophysical applications.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:84 commits, 9 PRs, 117 pushes in 4 years 8 months
Contributions summary:Michael contributed significantly to the SimPEG package by implementing and refining functions for electromagnetic (EM) modeling and analysis. Their work focused on developing analytic solutions for electric dipole sources, including calculations of E, J, and H fields. The user also refactored existing code to improve accuracy and added functionality for splitting electric fields into galvanic and inductive portions. Furthermore, the user enhanced the codebase by introducing functions for various EM survey analysis and data manipulation.
inversionpythonfinite-volumesimulationparameter-estimation
micmitch/simpeg
Mar 2023 - Jan 2024
Simulation and Parameter Estimation in Geophysics - A python package for simulation and gradient based parameter estimation in the context of geophysical applications.
Contributions:17 pushes, 10 branches, 2 tags in 9 months
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