This website catalogues what I get up to, please get in touch if you’d like.
Robots & Cars
For the 6+ years after my bachelor's, I worked at the Google Self Driving Car Project (now called Waymo) as a Software Engineer. I built the system that controls the vehicles’ positions at a fleet-wide level, and the algorithms to optimize their autonomous mileage collection and collective behaviour.
Earlier in my time at Waymo I worked on the Systems Engineering team, specifically on platform validation: brakes and steering. That, along with keeping my 50+ year old cars running – first a 1969 VW bus, and then a 1970 Mustang Grande — , gave me an ad-hoc foundation in the hardware side of robotics, which I am now working on expanding via a Masters in Robotics at ETH Zurich.
I’m hoping to gain the skills work on robots that interact with the natural environment in its extremes - in Space and in hard-to-reach places on Earth.
Projects
Various things I work on / have worked on over the past few years.
JWST Tutorials - 2023
Nira Energy Freelancing - 2023
Weasley Clock - 2023
Sound Research - 2022
Cleaners and Independent Allied Workers Union consulting - 2022
Mustang modifications - 2021
VW bus restoration - 2020
Pixar - 2013
About Me
I grew up in various Southern African countries, mainly Botswana, thanks to having a conservation ecologist as a mother, and a wildlife veterinarian as a father.
Naturally I didn’t stop to ponder how enviable the lifestyle my parents gave me was, and rushed off to the USA for college. I studied Computer Science at Brown University, hoping to work on autonomous public transit for the developing world.
I headed further west after school- to California. I had a fabulous time, and also learned two things: 1) the developing world is not a priority in Silicon Valley, and 2) tech is not a magic bullet, and hard unglamorous work for policy change is mostly what will bring about green, efficient transport infrastructure development.
Some elephants near home