RJ Nowling
Board Member at Milwaukee School of Engineering
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolRJ Nowling is a software engineer, computational scientist, and data scientist with 15 years of experience applying mathematical modeling, numerical algorithms, and distributed systems to problems in bioinformatics, chemistry, and large-scale data processing. Now an associate professor and director of graduate ML programs at Milwaukee School of Engineering, he builds curricula and industry partnerships while continuing hands-on research and teaching in machine learning. He has industrial experience deploying recommendation systems and scalable ML infrastructure at companies like AdRoll and Red Hat, and is an active open-source contributor to heavyweight projects such as Apache Spark and BigTop—adding MLlib sampling distributions and improving ETL/data generation pipelines. RJ combines deep academic training (Ph.D. in CS&E) with practical systems work, and his background in physics-style stochastic modeling informs both his applied ML and bioinformatics research. He also brings community leadership as a board member of Wisconsin-Chiba and an organizer of Data-Driven Wisconsin, reflecting a rare mix of technical depth, teaching, and regional engagement.
15 years of coding experience
18 years of employment as a software developer
B.S. Computer Science Mathematics, B.S. Computer Science Mathematics at Eckerd CollegePh.D. Computer Science & Engineering, Ph.D. Computer Science & Engineering at University of Notre DameJapanese, Japanese at Beloit College
Stackoverflow
88reputation
3kreached
1answer
1question
Github Skills (20)
data-generation10
bigtop10
spark10
data-pipelines10
big-data10
machine-learning10
java10
ml10
scala10
etl10
javas10
data-pipeline10
r9
python9
github7
Programming languages (20)
Github contributions (5)
apache/bigtop
Nov 2014 - Oct 2015
Bigtop is an Apache Foundation project for Infrastructure Engineers and Data Scientists looking for comprehensive packaging, testing, and configuration of the leading open source big data components.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Data Engineer
Back-end Developer & Data EngineerContributions:33 commits, 8 PRs, 28 comments in 10 months
Contributions summary:RJ contributed significantly to the BigPetStore data generator and Spark-based ETL processes. Their work included adding a Spark ETL script, fixing data format regressions, and enhancing the data generator with product enumeration and multinomial purchasing models. Additionally, the user integrated BigTop Weatherman, demonstrating expertise in data pipeline development and data generation methodologies within a big data context.
javaapachebig-databigtop
apache/spark
Jan 2016 - Jan 2016
Apache Spark - A unified analytics engine for large-scale data processing
Role in this project:Back-end Developer & ML Engineer
Back-end Developer & ML EngineerContributions:1 commit, 2 PRs, 23 comments in 1 day
Contributions summary:RJ primarily contributed to the Apache Spark project by implementing and improving MLLib features, specifically focusing on data generation and machine learning algorithms. Their work included adding new sampling distributions (exponential, gamma, and log normal) to MLlib data generators and incorporating minimum document frequency filtering into the IDF (Inverse Document Frequency) functionality. The user also addressed documentation inconsistencies and bug fixes within the PySpark and GraphX components of the project.
analyticspythondata-processingsqlapache
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