Updated 14 November 2023. The latest version of this CV can be found online at http://hodgestar.za.net/simon_cross_cv.html.
| Name | Simon Cross |
| Telephone | +27 73 593 9536 +41 76 729 6558 |
| hodgestar at gmail | |
| Residence | Zürich, Switzerland |
| Nationality | South African |
| Languages spoken | English (Home language), Afrikaans |
| Operating systems | Linux |
| Programming languages | Python, Javascript (server-side), C/C++, Matlab/Octave |
| Markup Languages | LaTeX, HTML and CSS, XML, RDF, YAML, JSON, various wiki markups |
| Other | Driver's licence |
| 1999 - 2003 | Master of Science (in Applied Mathematics) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). |
| 1998 | Bachelor of Science Honours (in Physics) at UCT. |
| 1995 - 1997 | Bachelor of Science (majoring in Mathematics and Physics with distinctions in both; minor in Computer Science; Computer Science 2nd Year Class Medal) at UCT. |
| July 2018 | Machine Learning by Andrew Ng (Coursera, Stanford University) |
| August 2019 | Fundamentals of Reinforcement Learning by Martha White & Adam White (Coursera, University of Alberta) |
| September 2019 | QUID 2019 Quantum Computing summer school (ETH Zürich) |
| October 2019 | Sample-based Learning Methods by University of Alberta & Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Coursera, University of Alberta) |
| December 2019 | Qiskit Camp Africa (IBM, South Africa) |
| July 2020 | AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty by AWS |
| June 2022 | Architecture, Algorithms, and Protocols of a Quantum Computer and Quantum Internet (QM3x) by edX and TU Delft |
| June 2022 | The Hardware of a Quantum Computer (QM2x) by edX and TU Delft |
| May 2023 - present | Full-time senior developer at Zurich Instruments; developing a quantum compilation, calibration and experiment toolchain. |
| May 2021 - April 2023 | Full-time developer on QuTiP, an open-source package for simulating open quantum systems. |
| October 2020 - April 2021 | Full-time developer on HPy, a better C API for Python |
| August 2016 - September 2020 | Full-time data science lead for Prodigy Finance; developing machine learning systems to improve the granting and servicing of post-graduate educational loans to international professionals. |
| August 2019 - January 2020 | Part-time data science and devops for Bold Metrics; developing data science models to predict clothing sizes for retailers. |
| August 2011 - July 2016 | Full-time Python development for Praekelt Foundation; developing scalable messaging platform to bring information, assistance and opportunities to people in the majority world. |
| August 2008 - July 2011 | Full-time Python development for SKA South Afica; control and monitoring software for a large radio telescope; development on Linux. |
| April 2006 - August 2008 | Full-time Python development for St James Software; cross-platform web applications; development on Linux. |
| April 2004 - March 2006 | Full-time Python and PHP development for the South African National Bioinformatics Institute; ontology management and alternative gene splicing applications; development on Linux. |
| December 2003 - March 2004 | Full-time PHP development for Independent Online; in-house software management tools and financial indicators graphing; development on FreeBSD. |
| December 2001 - March 2002 | Four-month C/C++ development contract calculating viability kernels for dynamic models of fish populations. |
| November 2001 - November 2003 | Part-time C/C++ development and system administration for simulation of fynbos evolution on a small (5-machine) Linux cluster. |
| July 2001 - July 2003 | Part-time lecturer for University of Cape Town; gave courses in advanced calculus, vector analysis, boundary value problems and MATLAB programming. |
| November 2000 - February 2001 | Four-month PHP development contract creating commercial website for GoldBiz. |
| December 1999 - July 2000 | Eight-month Matlab/Octave development contract for calibrating systems of 1-D cameras. |
| 1996; 1998; 2000; 2001 | Part-time tutor for first and second year mathematics, physics and computer science courses at UCT. |
| 2021 - present | QuTiP -- https://github.com/qutip/qutip/ |
| 2020 - present | HPy -- https://github.com/hpyproject/hpy/ |
| 2018 - 2020 | ML2P -- https://github.com/prodigyfinance/ml2p/ |
| 2012 - present | Wafer -- https://github.com/CTPUG/wafer/ |
| 2011 - 2016 | Vumi -- http://vumi.org |
| 2010 - present | Genshi -- http://genshi.edgewall.org |
| 2009 - 2012 | Bitten -- http://bitten.edgewall.org |
| 2016 | Attack of the Giant Space Mould -- https://pyweek.org/e/tabakrolletjie/ |
| 2016 | Portentosa -- https://pyweek.org/e/koperkapel/ |
| 2014 | Robolock II -- http://www.robolock-ii.org |
| 2013 | Werewolf Sonata -- http://www.werewolf-sonata.org |
| 2012 | Mutable Mamba -- http://www.mutable-mamba.org |
| 2011 | Nine Tales of the Kitsune -- http://www.pyweek.org/e/skaapsteker |
| 2008 - 2011 | KATCP -- http://pypi.python.org/pypi/katcp |
| 2006 - present | Sutekh -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/sutekh |
| 2010 | Suspended Sentence -- http://www.suspended-sentence.org/ |
| 2009 | Operation Fox Assault -- http://www.foxassault.org/ |
Other projects I've contributed patches too include Python, PyPy and Matplotlib. I am a member of CTPUG (http://ctpug.org.za/) and the PSF (https://www.python.org/psf/).
| Playtopia 2019 | One Pixel Ghost | 25m Möbius strip race track with eight lanes and approximatley 6000 LEDs; individually controlled using a Raspberry Pi, ESP32, Python and ZeroMQ |
| Spier 2019 | Tesseract II | 2m steel cube of 512 LEDs; individual controlled from Raspberry Pi using Python, ZeroMQ, SPI and TLC driver chips |
| AfrikaBurn 2018 | Earthstar | 5m diameter sphere woven from inflatable rings; 4000 LEDs individual controlled from Raspberry Pi using Python, ZeroMQ, C and SPI; 1000W |
| AfrikaBurn 2017 | Tesseract | 2m cube of 512 LEDs; individual controlled from Raspberry Pi using C and TLC driver chips |
| AfrikaBurn 2016 | Laghuis | Small hexagonal building; audio recorded and delayed for up to 30 minutes from 3 mics and 3 speakers attached to a Raspberry Pi using gstreamer and JACK audio |
| 2012 - 2021 | Organized PyConZA 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2020. Director of Python Software Society of South Africa 2017 - 2021. |
| 2006 - 2009 | Added carbohydrate visualization algorithms to VMD (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/). |
| 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012 | Co-wrote live-action roleplaying scenarios for Dragonfire, the annual CLAWs roleplaying convention (Grove of Fallen Leaves; Appointment at Atropos; The Last Days of Winter; Conclave at Charybdis; Hungover in the Hyades; Colony). |
| 2000, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 | Co-wrote roleplaying scenarios for Dragonfire (Quiet Iteration; Free Association; Brothers in Arms; By the Rivers Dark; Four from Edo; This is Vorpal Mace; The Case of the Missing Memories; Swan Song). |
| Title | Authors | Publication |
|---|---|---|
| An efficient Julia framework for hierarchical equations of motion in open quantum systems | Yi-Te Huang, Po-Chen Kuo, Neill Lambert, Mauro Cirio, Simon Cross, Shen-Liang Yang, Franco Nori & Yueh-Nan Chen | Communications Physics (volume 6, article 313, 2023, arxiv) |
| QuTiP-BoFiN: A bosonic and fermionic numerical hierarchical-equations-of-motion library with applications in light-harvesting, quantum control, and single-molecule electronics | Neill Lambert, Tarun Raheja, Simon Cross, Paul Menczel, Shahnawaz Ahmed, Alexander Pitchford, Daniel Burgarth, and Franco Nori | Phys. Rev. Research (volume 5, issue 1, March 2023, 013181) |
| Engineering and Science Highlights of the KAT-7 Radio Telescope | A. R. Foley, et al. | Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. (volume 460, issue 2, August 2016, pages 1664-1679) |
| Visualisation of Cyclic and Multi-Branched Molecules with VMD | S.D. Cross, M.M. Kuttel, J.E. Stone and J.E. Gain | Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling (volume 28, issue 2, September 2009, pages 131-139) |
| Multistable Pulse-like Solutions in a Parametrically Driven Ginzburg-Landau Equation | I.V. Barashenkov, S.D. Cross and Boris A. Malomed | Physical Review E (volume 68: 056605-1 to 056605-9) |
| Localised solutions to the parametrically driven complex Ginzburg-Landau equation | I.V. Barashenkov and S.D. Cross | Proceedings of the 3rd Hanno Rund Conference on Differential Equations and Applications (pages 183-187) |
| Localised solutions of the parametrically driven complex Ginzburg-Landau equation | I.V. Barashenkov and S.D. Cross | Fundamental and Applied Aspects of Modern Physics, Lüderitz 2000: Proceedings of the International Conference (pages 502-509); ISBN: 981-02-4589-0 |
| Year | Award |
|---|---|
| 2012 | PSF Community Service Award |
| Year | Interview |
|---|---|
| 2023 | PyDev of the Week (23 October) |