Stef Smeets
Software Engineer at PalmSens BV
Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolStef Smeets is a Software Engineer and research software specialist with 14 years of experience building open-source scientific tools, data pipelines, and instrumentation APIs. With a PhD in Materials Science from ETH Zürich and a background in nanomaterials and chemistry, he bridges experimental microscopy and software, having developed microscope control APIs, image-stitching and segmentation algorithms, and high-throughput data-acquisition pipelines. He has driven production-grade contributions to widely used projects like pymatgen—adding CIF site-label handling and robust structure operations—while leading engineering work at the Netherlands eScience Center and now PalmSens. Comfortable across Python, Docker, Jupyter ecosystems and visualization stacks, Stef combines deep domain knowledge with pragmatic engineering to make complex lab workflows reproducible and automatable. An uncommon strength is his blend of hands-on microscopy hardware control and backend software design, enabling end-to-end scientific automation.
14 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
International Baccalaureate, International Baccalaureate at International School HilversumMaster of Science (MSc) Nanomaterials, Master of Science (MSc) Nanomaterials at Utrecht UniversityDoctor of Philosophy - PhD Materials Science, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Materials Science at ETH Zürich
Dutch, English, German
Github Skills (7)
python10
data-structure9
science9
data-structures9
materials-informatics8
numpy8
pytest8
Programming languages (13)
Github contributions (5)
materialsproject/pymatgen
Jul 2023 - Apr 2024
Python Materials Genomics (pymatgen) is a robust materials analysis code that defines classes for structures and molecules with support for many electronic structure codes. It powers the Materials Project.
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:5 reviews, 8 PRs, 23 comments in 9 months
Contributions summary:Stef primarily contributed to the pymatgen library by implementing features related to reading and handling site labels within the CIF (Crystallographic Information File) format. Their work involved modifying existing code to store site labels in `site_properties`, adding tests, and propagating these labels through various structure operations and methods like `replace_species()`. They also refactored code, corrected typos, and addressed issues related to the SFAC (Structure Factor) writer.
moleculespythonscienceelectronic-structurepowers
stefsmeets/pymatgen
Jul 2023 - Apr 2024
Python Materials Genomics (pymatgen) is a robust materials analysis code that defines classes for structures and molecules with support for many electronic structure codes. It powers the Materials Project.
Contributions:37 pushes, 19 branches in 9 months
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