TheMartianLife

Contact + Links

You can contact me at @TheMartianLife via: Email, Twitter, GitHub, GitLab, or LinkedIn. You can also find a selection of my talk recordings on YouTube.

Recent Press/Content

Data61 Algorithm: "Spotlight on Women in Tech: Mars Buttfield-Addison"
GDC Vault: "Building Narrative Games with Yarn Spinner"
Uses This: "Interview with Mars Buttfield-Addison"
UTAS Media: "Student's Love for Machine Learning is Unstoppable"

Code

My day-to-day work is mostly programming, either for research, clients, or myself. Much of my professional work has been uncredited or is under NDAs, but my experience broadly covers:

Radio telescope software—including multi-tone spacecraft tracking software SCTracker, data format validation utility VDIFHeader, [current] a successor to the NRAO's popular DiFX I/O libraries mark5access and vdifio, and [private] real-time commensal space domain awareness software for ATCA.
Machine learning software—including [redacted] work in CCTV analysis at the University of Tasmania, [redacted] work on the Design Automation team at Canva, and [redacted] work on [redacted].
Coding/STEM activities—including the Swift Rockets code-along activity for National Science Week, the award-winning Resource, Respond, Rescue! Minecraft: Education Edition scenario for the CoRE Learning Foundation, and the official tutorials for the popular Open Source narrative framework Yarn Spinner.
Native iOS and macOS Apps—including the [retired] National Science Week app, and the dozens of apps I have written for books and courses on iOS and macOS development.

I primarily code in C (incl. CUDA, OpenCL), C++, C#, Python, and Swift, and for teaching I often use Java and Prolog. But I love learning new (and old) languages, and in my free time I write LaTeX packages for fun.

So if you have a tool or app you want made—for a radio telescope, for educational purposes, to enable science, for a good cause, or just something interesting—pitch it to me. I'll see what I can do for you.

Publications

So far I have written two books:

[2019] Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift for O'Reilly Media.
[2022] Practical Simulations for Machine Learning for O'Reilly Media.

I unfortunately had another book cancelled, after its topic project was sunset by Google without warning.

And I was also a proud tech reviewer for the fantastic Swift Style, Second Edition by the equally fantastic Erica Sadun, for The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

For research publications, see ORCiD logo ORCiD 0000-0001-8512-2434

Speaking

I have been a frequent speaker at tech events all over the world, including:

Machine learning conferences—TensorFlow World (Santa Clara 2019), AI Conf (San Francisco 2018; New York/San Jose 2019), YOW! Data Conference (Sydney 2019), Strata Data (London 2019), Reinforce AI (Budapest 2019).
Software/FOSS conferences—PyCon Australia (Sydney 2019; Online 2021), linux.conf.au (Online 2021), CocoaHeads (Sydney 2020), Software Architecture Conf (New York/Berlin 2019; New York 2020), SwiftAlps (Crans Montana 2019), OSCON (Portland 2018; 2019), /dev/world (Melbourne 2018).
Game development conferences—PAX Australia (Online 2020; 2021), GDC (Online 2021), NZGDC (Wellington 2019; 2021).
General technology events—ACS Emerging and Deep Tech: Data Science (Online 2020), AWS Community Day (Melbourne 2019), CreateWorld (Brisbane 2018).
STEM outreach events—West Coast Community Learning Pathways Project (Queenstown/Zeehan 2022), Women in Data Science (Hobart 2022), National Science Week (Online 2020; Hobart/Launceston/Online 2021), ACS Big Day In (Hobart 2019), and Careers Day events all over the place.

I also semi-regularly feature on the radio as an expert in STEM- and tech-related topics, such as on ABC Hobart's Your Afternoon about myriad topics—including the space debris "crisis", data privacy and Australia's anti-encryption Laws, issues with cryptocurrency and NFTS, gaming "disorder", and more—and on 3RRR's Einstein-A-Go-Go for their 20 PhDs in 20 Minutes special.

I happily accept speaking requests. So if you have a cool event coming up that you think I'd suit, tell me about it!

Teaching

I am an intermittent teaching assistant, tutor, and advisor at the University of Tasmania's School of Information, Communication and Technology.

In this capacity, I have been responsible for teaching undergraduate Artificial Intelligence (KIT108) and Introduction to Data Science (KIT102), and am currently engaged as a unit design advisor for postgraduate Mobile Dev for Market (KIT614).

When my work schedule permits it, I also offer private tutoring in programming and computer science topics.

Outreach

I am currently serving as an Executive Council Member for the AUC (fka. Apple University Consortium) and act as Conference Organiser for the annual /dev/world Apple developer community conference.

I also previously served as the Student Member Representative and Tasmanian Branch Executive Committee Member for the Australian Computer Society, where I was a founder of the annual Information Overload scholarship fundraiser.

In addition to these, I enjoy regular volunteering at tech and/or educational events. So if you need a hand, get in touch!

Recognition

I have received a number of awards, for both myself and projects I have worked on, spanning:

Academic achievement awards—including the M.J. Rees Prize for First Year Information Systems, multiple admissions to the Dean's Honour Roll, and a University Medal.
Industry recognition awards—including a prestigious Apple WWDC Scholarship, and being named "ICT Student of the Year" in the ACS Digital Disruptor Awards.
Academic scholarships—including a University Club Scholarship for my Honours degree, and a CSIRO Data61 Collaboration Scholarship for my PhD.
Product awards—including the TasICT Excellence Award for "Best Customer Service or Solution", awarded for educational games I developed for the CoRE Learning Foundation.

Other

But it's not all work. I have other hobbies and interests too! For example:

I love space! This includes science fiction film, tv, and video/board games, as well as real outer space. Though my work focuses on radio telescopes, I own multiple specialist optical telescopes as a hobbyist stargazer.
I have been a professional and competitive Minecraft builder, including multiple years of contribution to the world-record-breaking WesterosCraft project—a collaborative effort to recreate the entire world of Game of Thrones in Minecraft.
I live in the most beautiful place in the world, in a Tiny House, with my best friend, adhering as much as possible to an eco-friendly lifestyle.

The Martian Life

The personal website of Mars Buttfield-Addison (fka. Geldard).

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