Zack Chilton
Senior Systems Engineer at Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolZack Chilton is a Senior Systems Engineer with a decade of experience applying physics and software engineering to complex space and robotics systems, currently integrating JWST ground and onboard software at the Space Telescope Science Institute. He blends hands-on release management and documentation work on the high-profile spacetelescope/jwst project with operational systems engineering for on-orbit robotic servicing tests. His background spans software testing, event-driven instrument commanding, and robotic flight integration, giving him a rare combination of mission-facing operations and open-source stewardship. A former JPL SURE and Caltech visiting researcher with an MS in Physics, he also develops geospatial and oceanographic data tooling and supports high-altitude ballooning and bathymetric pipelines outside of core telescope work.
10 years of coding experience
9 years of employment as a software developer
University of Georgia
Github Skills (6)
release-management10
python10
documentation10
astronomy9
rs9
git7
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
spacetelescope/jwst
May 2022 - Jan 2023
Python library for science observations from the James Webb Space Telescope
Role in this project:
Release Manager & Documentation Specialist
Release Manager & Documentation SpecialistContributions:50 releases, 159 reviews, 79 commits in 8 months
Contributions summary:Zack's primary focus was on managing and preparing releases, evident through frequent updates to the `CHANGES.rst` file and metadata adjustments. They consistently froze and opened change logs for new versions, updated requirements, and integrated documentation improvements related to CRDS cache management and other documentation-related aspects. Furthermore, the user implemented updates and changes related to the project's documentation, including code style changes and fixing of the Python version.
python-librarypythonsciencewebbjwst
zacharyburnett/stdatamodels
Jun 2022 - Mar 2025
Contributions:114 pushes, 58 branches in 2 years 9 months
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