William T. Gustafson

3917 Interlake Avenue North
Seattle, Washington 98103
(206) 545-0706
email: billg@alumni.caltech.edu

Experience:

2020-present     University of Washington     Seattle, WA

Software Engineer, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation

Software engineer on Local and Small Area Estimation Engineering team, supporting research teams modeling health disparity outcomes at county level in the U.S. and admin level 2 globally. Explored using high-resolution satellite imagery and machine learning algorithms to estimate consumption in selected countries in Africa.

2020     WTG Software LLC     Seattle, WA

Scientific Software Engineer

Contract software engineer in Renewable Energy and Satelllite Imagery Applications.

2013-2020    Vaisala     Seattle, WA

Scientific Software Engineer, Energy Offering Development.

Produced daily solar reconciliation data product based on satellite images. Primary responsibility for improving algorithms for updating hourly time series solar radiation data product based on images from GOES, MTSAT, GMS, Himawari, and Meteosat series of geosynchronous weather satellites taken between January 1997 and the current time. Includes researching and incorporating data sets of atmospheric and land surface parameters (aerosol optical depth, water vapor, snow) based on satellite measurements (MODIS), weather reanalysis and forecasting data sets (MERRA, ERA-Interim, GFS, ECMWF-MACC), and ground measurements (Aeronet, BSRN, NSRDB, client observations). Worked with numerical weather prediction (WRF) models to test performance and data consistency.

2018-2019    Vaisala     Seattle, WA

Scientific Software Engineer, Ground Transportation.

Worked at the intersection of science, software development and operations to help create an operational road condition forecast system. Designed the backend system to use existing databases and data extraction software to sample input data for the forecast model. Implemented an AWS Lambda for processing external forecast data, and wrote a program using GeoPandas to downsample data from various inputs to our base GIS road network. Implemented a Kubernetes framework in AWS for scientists to execute retrospective model runs.

2012-2013    The Climate Corporation     Seattle, WA

Physical Observations Engineer, Platform/Data Acquisitions Group

Responsible for evaluating, selecting, and ingesting weather, soil, land surface model and geographic datasets. Responsible for operational updating of internal versions of recurring weather datasets. Responsible for merging multiple CONUS-wide datasets (soil, precipitation, and field level shapefiles) into a single dataset used throughout the company for modeling and sales. Evaluated and implemented processing technique for soil data. Developed processes for evaluating model input, including developing a tool for automated dataset extraction of the Landsat TM, and NASS cropscape data for given shapefiles. Created visualizations for QC and data analysis.

2007-2012    3TIER     Seattle, WA

Scientific Programmer, Software Development Group.

Primary responsibility for implementing algorithms (C, Ruby) to produce global irradiance map and hourly time series data product based on images from GOES, MTSAT, GMS, and Meteosat series of geosynchronous weather satellites taken between January 1997 and the current time. Assisted in algorithm development for irradiance map including producing timeseries dataset of atmospheric turbidity based on inputs from MODIS instrument. Wrote application (Ruby) and library (C) for solar forecasting based on numerical weather prediction model output. Wrote application to process numerical weather prediction model output for subsequent data extraction.

2005-2007    University of Washington     Seattle, WA

Senior Computer Specialist, Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

Responsible for development and maintenance of software used by the Network and its researchers.   Developed application programs (C, Matlab), and high-level scripting language programs (C and bourne shell scripting) for seismological data collection and archiving.   Maintained and supported applications (Java, Perl, Mysql) for creating web pages of seismic shaking, and equipment inventory.   Provided computer support and system administration for Solaris and Linux systems.

1993-2007    University of Washington     Seattle, WA

Research Engineer, UW Keck Remote Sensing Laboratory.

Responsible for software development of standard product algorithms for the ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) instrument aboard the Terra satellite as part of the Earth Observing System. Conducted research into remote sensing applications of the ASTER instrument, MASTER (Modis/ASTER) airborne simulator, SEBASS hyperspectral thermal imager, the AVHRR (Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) instrument, Landsat TM and MSS, SIR-C and AIRSAR radar. Developed MPI code for multi-processor Beowulf clusters for NASA's REE project, and for use with Matlab Compiler application for high-resolution LIDAR imagery.  Developed application programs (C, IDL), and high-level scripting language programs (python, perl, IDL) for remote sensing research applications.   Developed MS Windows, and Windows NT image processing software for remote sensing applications.  Wrote routing model for hydrological modeling of Amazon River Basin. Provided computer support and system administration for IBM PC's, Macintosh, and Unix systems.   Provided maintenance, trouble-shooting and hardware support for various field instrumentation.

1989-1993       QUEST Integrated Inc.    Kent, WA

Engineer, Software and Electronics Development.

Developed hardware and software for a variety of instrumentation applications.

1989-1993       448th Civil Affairs Battalion, USAR     Ft Lewis, WA

Intelligence Staff Officer (S-2).


Education: University of Washington, MSE, August 1996.

Thesis: Land-form classification of SIR-C radar images based on radar scattering components. Coursework included Geophysical Data Analysis, Geophysical Inverse Theory, Image Interpretation, Microwave Measurement Techniques, Geologic Remote Sensing, Electromagnetic Theory and Applications, C programming.

California Institute of Technology, BSEE, June 1987.

Standard engineering coursework including Physics of Remote Sensing.


Skills:

Fluent in C, Python, R and shell scripting. Python work includes using Pandas, GeoPandas and Jupyter. Maintenance level experience with C++, Ruby, Clojure, Java, and Perl.

System administration experience with Linux, and Windows

Application program experience includes: C and C++ program development tools (Gnu C compiler, git), IDL/ENVI, Matlab, Gnuplot, Ncview, OGR/GDAL, QGIS, Docker, Kubernetes, HPC cluster computing (SLURM, SGE).


Publications, references available upon request.
pdf copy of this document.

Go back to my homepage .