Nils Deppe
City of Ithaca, New York, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolNils Deppe is a computational astrophysicist and software engineer with a decade of experience building scalable, high-performance numerical codes for general relativity and gravitational-wave science. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell and has led development of the massively parallel SpECTRE code—implementing high-order hybrid finite-difference/discontinuous-Galerkin methods used to simulate binary black hole and neutron star mergers. Equally comfortable in C++ and HPC environments, he has contributed backend work to widely used tooling like the Spack package manager and optimized core numerical algorithms in SpECTRE. His background spans academia and industry—from postdoctoral research at Caltech and an assistant professorship to an internship at Uber ATG—bringing a rare mix of rigorous theory, production-grade software engineering, and practical experience with large-scale MPI-parallel codes.
10 years of coding experience
8 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Science (Honours), Theoretical and Mathematical Physics, Bachelor of Science (Honours), Theoretical and Mathematical Physics at The University of WinnipegDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Physics, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Physics at Cornell University
Github Skills (13)
algorithm10
package-manager-tool10
algorithms10
finite-difference10
build-tools10
difference10
c-language10
package-manager10
cprogramming-language10
numerical-methods10
python10
package-management10
scientific-computing10
Programming languages (15)
Github contributions (5)
sxs-collaboration/spectre
Apr 2017 - Jan 2023
SpECTRE is a code for multi-scale, multi-physics problems in astrophysics and gravitational physics.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:5578 reviews, 3665 commits, 2932 PRs in 5 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Nils contributed significantly to the SpECTRE code base. They implemented functionality for obtaining face-centered collocation points, added actions for navigation in a DG-subcell solver, introduced reconstruction algorithms on Cartesian grids, and optimized variable handling. These commits demonstrate a focus on enhancing the core computational aspects of the project, specifically within the areas of numerical algorithms.
pythonproblemshierarchicalsimulationreduction
spack/spack
Apr 2017 - Mar 2018
A flexible package manager that supports multiple versions, configurations, platforms, and compilers.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:7 commits, 7 PRs, 11 comments in 11 months
Contributions summary:Nils primarily contributed to the Spack package manager by adding new packages and updating existing ones. Their work involved creating `package.py` files, which define how software packages are built, installed, and managed within the Spack environment. They also added new versions of existing packages and integrated external libraries like Blaze and Catch. This suggests a focus on extending and maintaining the functionality of the package manager and its support for various software dependencies.
compilerspythonradiussplatformslinux
Find and Hire Top DevelopersWe’ve analyzed the programming source code of over 60 million software developers on GitHub and scored them by 50,000 skills. Sign-up on Prog,AI to search for software developers.