1. Erik Bray
Space Telescope Science Institute erik.m.bray@gmail.com
Baltimore, Maryland, USA 1 (240) 424-0759
Education
•
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
B.S. Computer Science & B.A. Japanese Language and Literature 2007
Granted Cum Laude with a minor in Mathematics
•
Johns Hopkins University
M.S. Applied Physics (in progress) expected 2015
Relevant courses: Quantum Information Theory, Quantum Field Theory, Quantum Field
Theory II
Work Summary
Over seven years experience in many aspects of computer and network engineering, computer security,
software development with compliance of software documents to standards, and user support. Develops
software in C, Python, Java, Perl, and other languages primarily on Linux, with some Windows
development experience as well. Additional experience in security research, interfacing software with
enterprise database and authentication systems, and open source software. Procient in developing
object-oriented software applications for deployment on both the web and the desktop.
Technical Experience
• Seven years experience with working in Python, including C extension modules. Experience in C
and x86 assembly. Five years experience with JavaScript. Three years experience with Java. Also
experience in bash and csh scripting, Perl, and PHP.
• Experience with x86 system architecture, Linux, network programming, and IPv6. Practice using
multiprocessing, asynchronous programming, and coroutines.
• Experience in development of dynamic websites with W3C standard-compliant XHTML or HTML5,
CSS, and JavaScript as well as AJAX and web sockets.
• Experience with SQL and relational database design and deploymentparticularly PostgreSQL,
SQLite, and some Oracle. Some experience with MongoDB.
• Experience with source control tools including Git, Subversion, and Mercurial, as well as source
hosting and bug tracker tools such as GitHub, BitBucket, Trac and Bugzilla.
• Experienced with the GNU suite of development tools such as gcc, make, autoconf, and gdb, as well
as related tools. Experience packaging software for Linux distributions, particularly Debian.

2. Professional Experience
•
Senior System Software Engineer
Space Telescope Science Institute 01/2011 Present
Developed and maintained software for science data analysis, primarily for data from the
Hubble Space Telescope, and other observatories. Worked with science teams to improve the
eciency and maintainability of their code, as well as its documentation, packaging and
distribution for use by the broader scientic community. Worked on numerous projects
comprising a scientic image processing pipeline in Python, C, and some Fortran.
Worked with developers and astronomers around to world to improve their own software, and
to foster best practice and interoperability with each other's software.
Acted as release manager for a large open source project (Astropy).
•
Software Engineer
SAIC 01/2007 01/2011
CMS Server Appliance: Lead developer on an internally developed content and project
management suite/web server appliance deployed throughout the company. Though primarily
web-based, it integrates with verson control systems as well. It is based on Trac (developed in
Python) served via Apache, and is installed with a customized Linux distribution based on
Debian.
Test Framework Development: Developed a Python-based framework for integration and
regression testing of a specialized network tool across multiple hardware platforms.
Implemented a suite of tests using the framework, which included unit tests and functional
tests. Performed some maintenance on the tool being tested, which is written in C and x86
assembly.
CMS Application Development: Took over development of a government customer's legacy
content management web applicationredesigned and rewrote the application from the ground
up using better development processes and more modern HTML+CSS+JS, a RESTful
interface, and a functional test suite.
Fuzz Testing Framework IRD: Primary developer for an internal RD project to advance a
fuzz testing framework for computer fault discovery. Implemented a set components written in
Python which provide software and user interfaces for integrating dierent fuzzing and crash
analysis tools. Used this framework for fault discovery in IPv6 applications and network stacks
using Scapy and a custom-developed Python interface to the Windows Debugger.
•
Software Engineer Intern
SAIC 06/2006 09/2006
Supported the OmniPoint CMS project as a summer intern. Designed and implemented
complete new features including a visual workow editor, automatic document saving, and
others.

3. Additional Experience
• Developed a Pythonic framework for developing and simulating quantum circuits called PyQC.
• Contributor to open source projects such as: Astropy, CPython, Trac, Numpy, pip, setuptools, and
others.
• Has lectured on Numpy, Git, and software design and testing concepts in aliation with the
Software Carpentry project at:
Columbia University (09/2012)
George Mason University (10/2012)
University of Hawaii (12/2012)
UMass Amherst (05/2013)
Carnegie Mellon University (07/2013)
Harvard University (08/2013)
University of Virginia (03/2014)
AAS 225th Meeting (01/2015)
• Competency in reading, writing, and speaking Japanese, as well as some Spanish.
Publications
1) Astropy Collaboration, 2013. Astropy: A community Python package for astronomy. AA 558, A33.
doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201322068, arXiv:1307.6212.
2) Thomas B. et al., 2015. Learning from FITS: Limitations in use in modern astronomical research.
Astron. Comp. doi:10.1016/j.ascom.2015.01. 009, arXiv:1502.00996v2.
Training and Conferences
PyCon North America (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013)
SciPy (2011, 2012, 2014)
Blackhat USA (2010)
Defcon (2009, 2010)
SANS 504 Hacker Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling (2009)
References
• Greg Wilson, Founder, Software Carpentry gvwilson@software-carpentry.org
• Perry Greeneld, Branch Manager, Space Telescope perry@stsci.edu
• Alex Viana, Former colleague, Space Telescope alexcostaviana@gmail.com
• Paul Rosenblum, Division Manager, SAIC rosenblump@saic.com
• Peter Wihl, Former project manager, SAIC peter.wihl@gmail.com