Toby Hocking
Associate Professor Of Computer Science
Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolToby Hocking is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and seasoned big-data programmer with 12 years of experience applying machine learning and interactive data visualization to bioinformatics and large-scale data problems. He combines academic rigor—PhD work across top French institutions and postdoctoral research at McGill exploring genomic ML models—with practical engineering contributions to open-source R projects like plotly.R and data.table, where he implemented ggplot2-to-Plotly conversions and performance-minded C fixes. Comfortable across the stack, Toby has built production tools (Python/Django apps and R visualization pipelines) and teaches others to use free/open-source tools for big data analysis. Currently based in Sherbrooke, he consults on scalable data workflows and visualization, offering both technical problem-solving and hands-on training informed by a rare blend of computational biology and software-engineering experience.
12 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Statistics (honors thesis with Terry Speed) and Molecular Cell Biology, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Statistics (honors thesis with Terry Speed) and Molecular Cell Biology at University of California, BerkeleyDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Machine learning applied to bioinformatics, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Machine learning applied to bioinformatics at Institut Curie INSERM U900, Mines ParisTech CBIO, INRIA SIERRA, Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan
English, French
Stackoverflow
106reputation
6kreached
3answers
0questions
Github Skills (24)
data-visualizations10
r-package10
r10
data-manipulation10
data-visualisation10
c1110
c1710
performance-tuning10
data-visualization10
ggplot10
plotly10
data-structure9
javascript9
algorithm9
code-optimization9
Programming languages (18)
Github contributions (5)
Rdatatable/data.table
Sep 2019 - Dec 2022
R's data.table package extends data.frame:
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:451 reviews, 29 commits, 107 PRs in 3 years 3 months
Contributions summary:Toby primarily contributed to the `data.table` package, focusing on bug fixes and code enhancements within the C source code. Their work involved addressing compiler warnings, improving code consistency, and supporting new features, particularly related to the `melt` function. The user also made memory-efficient improvements, suggesting a focus on optimizing the package's performance and reliability.
r-packageframecranrrstats
plotly/plotly.R
Mar 2014 - Apr 2015
An interactive graphing library for R
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:148 commits, 11 PRs, 44 pushes in 1 year 1 month
Contributions summary:Toby implemented features to convert ggplot2 plots to interactive plotly visualizations within the R environment. Their work focused on translating ggplot2 aesthetics (like color, shape, and linetype) into equivalent Plotly properties and layout elements. The user also added functionality to embed the generated plots in R Markdown documents and addressed issues related to legend display and axis formatting. Code changes include modifications to core plotting functions, test file updates, and layout element implementation.
r-packagevisualizationsocial-network-analysishtmlwidgetswebgl
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