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Colin Sauzé - Curriculum Vitae

(Publication Date March 2023)

Personal Profile

I currently work as a Senior Research Software Engineer at National Oceanography Centre. I support for researchers across the National Oceanography Centre to improve their existing software and build new software. I also run training sessions on programming and associated skills and developing new training material.

Education

  • 2006 - 2011, Aberystwyth University. PhD - "A Neuro-Endocrine Inspired Approach to Power Management in Sailing Robots".
  • 2000 - 2005, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Software Engineering MEng, 1st Class.
  • 1998 - 2000, Helston Community College, Cornwall. A-Level Computing - A, History - A, Geography - B and Maths - C.
  • 1997 - 1998, Helston School, Helston, Cornwall. 10 GCSEs grades A* to D including Computing, Maths, Science and Engineering.

Technical Skills

  • Programming: Python, C/C++, Perl, R, PHP, BASH, Java, Javascript and assembly language.
  • Software Engineering tools and techniques: UML, ER diagrams, continuous integration with Jenkins and Travis-CI. Experience of version control with CVS, SVN and Git. Automated testing with unit testing frameworks including PyTest, JUnit and PHPUnit.
  • High Performance Computing: Experience of the Slurm and SGE schedulers. Parallelising software using GNU Parallel, MPI and OpenMP. Packaging and containerisation using Singularity, Docker and Conda. Optimising software with profiling tools including Intel VTune and NVIDIA Visual Profiler.
  • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Experience with shallow and deep neural networks for robot control and image recognition. Use of the SciKit learn, Darknet and Keras frameworks.
  • Databases and Web Development: Experience of relational database management systems including Oracle, MySQL and PostgreSQL. Development of web applications with PHP, Java Enterprise and CGI.
  • Systems administration: Experience administering servers and desktops running Linux/Unix and Windows. Currently responsible for running a 500 core HPC system, 1PB of research data storage and over 50 virtual machines used for bioinformatics and remote sensing research.
  • Teaching and Training: Software Carpentry Instructor, providing hands on research computing training. Currently developing new lessons on Machine Learning with Scikit Learn and deep learning. Lecturing experience in open source development, ubiquitous computing and embedded systems undergraduate modules. Developed and demonstrated practical material in computer networking, robotics and embedded systems. Supervised student final year projects.
  • Project Management and Supervision: Experience of managing a small teams of software developers. Ran a team of two to three interns while working at the Plant Phenomics Centre. Awarded a Joy Welch Trust grant in 2019 to employ two students to investigate deep learning for classifying maritime obstacles. Mentor to the AberSailbot student robotic sailing team, responsible for setting overall strategy and coordinating travel to international competitions.
  • Robotics: Worked on all aspect of designing, constructing, programming and operating a number of robots. Built over 15 sailing robots. Developed software for robot control, communications, collision avoidance, route planning, power management and performance analysis.
  • Electronics and Embedded systems: Experience with microcontrollers and embedded Linux systems including the Raspberry Pi. Experience of designing electronic circuits and soldering.

Employment

  • 01/2023 - present: Senior Research Software Engineer, National Oceanography Centre. Responsible for developing, improving and optimising scientific software, providing user training/support, engaging with reseachers to discover their requirements/help with their funding applications and managing the Research Software Engineering team.
  • 10/2017 – 12/2022: Research Software Engineer, Supercomputing Wales Project, Aberystwyth University. Responsible for developing/optimising high performance computing (HPC) applications, providing user training/support and system administration of HPC and research computing systems.
  • 06/2015 – 10/2017: Data Manager at the National Plant Phenomics Centre, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University. Responsible for developing and managing systems for automated high throughput imaging of plants. Including computer vision systems, thermal imagers, 3D laser scanners, weighing/watering systems, databases, web applications and data processing systems.
  • 04/2014 – 06/2015: Academic Liaison Officer for the Software Alliance Wales Project, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University. Responsible for running courses for industry on Arduino microcontrollers, software engineering and cyber security.
  • 11/2013 - 03/2014: Research Associate for the ASTUTE Project, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University. Developed software for verifying mission plans and estimating power consumption in unmanned aerial vehicles.
  • 09/2010 - 10/2013: Research Associate for the Tethys Project, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University. Developed controllers for autonomous power management in robotic systems including sail and motor powered boats and unmanned aerial vehicles.
  • 03/2006 - 06/2008: Computer Officer for the Computational Biology Group, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University. Responsible for technical support and software development on the “Robot Scientist”, a system for automating growing yeast and automatically designing experiments. Also responsible for running HPC systems for computational biology.
  • 08/2005 - 03/2006: Computer Officer for Careers Advisory Service, University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Developed web applications using PHP and Oracle.
  • 06/2002 - 09/2003: Student Engineer, High Performance Technical Computing group, Hewlett Packard, Galway, Ireland. Developed and tested high performance file systems for super computers.

Highlighted Publications

  • N. Hughes, K. Askew, C.P. Scotson, K. Williams, C. Sauzé, F. Corke, J. Doonan and C. Nibau et al. (2017) “Non-destructive, high-content analysis of wheat grain traits using X-ray micro computed tomography.” Plant Methods 13, 76.
  • C. Sauzé and M. Neal, P. Miller and T. Blanchard (2015), “An Ice Strengthened Autonomous Surface Vessel for Surveying Marine-Terminating Calving Glaciers”, Journal of Ocean Technology, volume 10, number 3, pages 86-111.
  • C. Sauzé and M. Neal, (2013), “An Artificial Endocrine Controller for Power Management in Robotic Systems”, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems, volume 24, number 12, December 2013, pages 1973-1985
  • C. Sauzé and M. Neal, (2011), 'Long Term Power Management in Sailing Robots', In proceedings of IEEE Oceans 2011, Santander, Spain, June 6-9 2011.
  • C. Sauzé (2010) “Long Term Power Management in Sailing Robots”, PhD Thesis, University of Wales, Aberystwyth
  • C. Sauzeé and M. Neal (2010), “A Raycast Approach to Collision Avoidance in Sailing Robots”, in proceedings of the 3rd International Robotic Sailing Conference, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, June 6th-10th 2010
  • C. Sauzié and M. Neal (2008) “Design Considerations for Sailing Robots Performing Long Term Autonomous Oceanography.”, in proceedings of the IRSC, Breitenbrunn, Austria, May 23rd-24th 2008, pages 21-29.

Interests

  • Computing, robotics and electronics
  • Photography
  • Walking
  • Traveling both in the UK and abroad
  • Sailing
  • Politics, current affairs and modern history.

Referees available upon request.