Intro

(I Am With Name)

News

(sometimes and sort of)

About

(too much information)

Stuff

(teh roxors)


Stuff I've Done

If she says she can do it
Then she can do it
She don't make false claims!

- David Bowie, "Queen Bitch" (Hunky Dory)

. . . well some of it, anyway. I hold two science degrees (Maths, Physics), a teaching degree and a data science certification. I've been in various lines of work and my works are varied accordingly. In what I suppose is my version of a portfolio, here are samples of what I have done on various projects (but some of my best work isn't yet in the public domain). Along with always doing what I'm supposed to, I often add a dash of flair. If any of these impress, fantastic. If any of these also amuse, even better. If you'd like to work with me, shoot me an email (astroant@hotmail.com).

Contents
Data, Statistics and Algorithms — Analysis, Prediction and Simulation
Webpages
Teaching Resources - with Technology
Slides
Publications
Visualisations

Data, Statistics and Algorithms — Analysis, Prediction and Simulation
Thesis submitted for Master of Science (Research) (8.5 MB)

I still don't seem to have topped this. In this work I designed a new multiscale algorithm that made significant progress on a long-standing problem, and devised a new test of cosmology to attempt to distinguish competing models for the Universe. The size of the dataset and the sampling made coarse-graining necessary, along with additional optimisations. Each chapter tackles a different problem, with new approaches required on each occasion. At the beginning of each chapter I introduce the context, conveying complex ideas succinctly. Models are tested with statistical rigour in Chapter 5. All analysis relies on my own code.

New Killer Star: Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic for Climate Change and the Fossil Fuel Industry

Simulating the effects of COVID and renewable energy subsidies on the climate system. A current interest for me. Codes in Python and Octave, visualisations in tableau, plotly and matplotlib. The simulation is looped under a Monte Carlo arrangement, to consider uncertainties in the various parameters.



Webpages
My Personal Website

I guess this isn't really work, but it is the most extensive webpage I've created, and a sample of my informal writing. Written in HTML by yours truly.

Web page I created to present results

A page I wrote to make a more publicly-accessible front for some research. Demonstrates basic proficiency in HTML and content management systems like wikis (this was also a page at my institution, but they're not very good at updating links), and hopefully a dash of taste. It has a link to a page showing three-dimensional visualisations I generated with my own code. This page is procedurally-generated, so that major alterations to the formatting are simple to implement.



Teaching Resources - with Technology
Olympus Mons in Virtual Reality

This is a virtual reality environment I created that allows one to climb Olympus Mons, on Mars.

This animation shows what one may see as one approaches, climbs and walks around the top of Olympus Mons in this environment. Mars is actually red, so the colours are wrong. The frame rate has been reduced in this animation, but the motion on most computers is smoother than this suggests.

To try this for yourself, copy this zip file to some directory (right-click and "save link as" or "save target as"):
Olympus Mons in Virtual Reality .

Unzip the contents of the file to some place. On Windows, in a file browser double-click on RunMars.bat . It may be necessary to modify permissions so you can run it. This should run the game. Type " idclip ", which gives you the ability to walk through and over walls and cliffs. Use the arrow keys to move, and the mouse to look around. When finished, press the escape key and click on quit to leave the game and close the window. Feel free to let me know if you encounter any issues accessing or running this.

It's only a prototype and there are some obvious problems with it, but is a proof of concept that earned me a High Distinction grade in the assessment I submitted it for. I created it with a height map of Olympus Mons, a utility called ZTerrain and GZDoom Builder. It runs in a port of the Doom engine, GZDoom, and uses content from the Freedoom project.

An Activity to Demonstrate Some Basic Principles of Statistical Sampling

This is a program that I have written to accompany a worksheet activity for the Preliminary Mathematics General Course, to address the Data and Statistics strand. This program and worksheet are available from this page. For an assessment I completed for a Mathematics Teaching Methods course I wrote an evaluation of this resource, an adapted version of which can be found here. I have written the code and compiled the program in Python.



Slides

These are from teaching statistics at SCU Sydney, written by me.
Fundamentals of hypothesis testing

One of my more amusing lessons. I always have fun with these.

Introduction to multiple regression

I like how we built a discussion around the tutorial attendance numbers for the session so far, and the incorporation of code to implement a statistical method.


Publications
2012 Research Paper

Based on my Master's research. In this work we presented a new approach to identifying structure in galaxy data, a multiscale algorithm that made significant progress on a long-standing problem. It certainly has more citations than my other paper, but I don't really know what an impressive number would be here.

2008 Research Paper

Based on my Honours research. In this work we employed non-local statistics to examine correlations and intrinsic clustering in data.


Visualisations
Animated Three-Dimensional Spin Visualisations of Structures in Our Universe

When it comes to visualisation, I can totally do the basics - if you want to see scatter plots, trends, maps and so forth, look at my publications and knock yourself out. And those are both necessary and revelatory - but during my MSc I decided I wanted to really bring some of the results to life, make them look cool. I mean, what is the point of finding the most impressive structures in the Universe if you're not going to visualise them properly? None of the tools I had at hand could do the sort of visualisation I wanted, so I wrote some software of my own to do the job. And these animated three-dimensional spins are what I came up with.

Fun with tableau

The Peacock in the Snow: Linear Additive Modelling and Principal Component Analysis of Climate Change. There's also a commentary here, but the links to the viz are broken because they keep changing. There's also Watch That Man: Trends and Statistics on the Discography of David Bowie Again with a page of broken links for the same reason.

Procedurally-Generated Digital Artwork

I like procedural generation, and I like art. So when confronted with the task of creating art for a computer game remake, with no visual-artistic know-how, I resorted to procedural generation in code. The stellar pattern is an emulation of a two-point correlation function with a power-law slope (which I was familiar with from galaxy clustering statistics). And as you might have guessed, I later reused the code to apply the digital ink on the three-dimensional spin visualisations of my MSc. I liked it enough that it's the background for the site you now stand in.