City of Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Primarily, I enjoy solving problems in new and innovative ways, pushing for new paradigms. I have a strong theoretical background in optimisation, finite element, discrete element methods, particle-based solvers, optimum design, and statistical, machine and deep (SMD) learning, which I have developed through consulting, active research and teaching. Contributions include gradient-only optimisation for defining solutions to and solving discontinuous loss functions (including point-wise discontinuous functions), a.k.a. "That/The Gradient-Only Guy" at conferences, surrogate modelling for smooth and discontinuous functions with multi-fidelity surrogate strategies, pre-transforming data for surrogates, temporal preservation in latent variable models, and interpretable latent spaces. Research and facilitation background to acquire and transfer new knowledge within a group. Strong interpersonal skills with hands-on experience in planning and executing multiple projects. Consultation: In-house corporate training focusing on skill and not only knowledge transfer for Optimum Design (Intensive Two Day Course with follow-up) and Finite Element Analysis (Intensive Two Day Course with follow-up). Development of application and problem-specific CAE technology solutions that solve specific engineering problems instead of general CAE solutions. Benefits include tailor-made solutions that do not require extensive training. Solutions are based on software that does not require yearly licensing and is validated experimentally for the application or problem under consideration. Monetary investment results in additional functionality towards a specific issue and not towards general maintenance of functionality that is not of direct interest. Specialities: Computational Mechanics, Discrete Element Modelling, Optimum Design, Process Modelling, Process Optimisation, Statistical Learning, Machine Learning and Deep Learning, and Computer Programming (Matlab, Python, Fortran and self-taught C, C++ and CUDA)
Optimization is my passion (gradient-only optimization guy making small dents in AI), Discrete element modelling my application and Nvidia GPUs my calculator @daniwi79