TIG’s Lair

Skills

• Scientific and technical skills: Large scale simulations, modeling, numerical solutions and optimization, multidimensional exploration, machine learning, and statistical data analysis, distributed and parallel system design and implementation, large scale data storage and database architecture, RESTian API design, cluster systems management.
• Currently used computing skills: C and C++; Python, Twisted and Django; Java; Javascript and JSON; R; XML; REST; Ubuntu and Fedora Linux, including clusters; OSX; apache and lighttpd; XMPP; postgres, MySQL, SQLite.
• Working Knowledge and previously used: C#, FORTRAN, Ruby and RAILS, Perl, MPI, SOAP.

Experience

• 2007-present: Computational Scientist, Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) at the Time Series Center (http://timemachine.iic.harvard.edu). Implementation of large scale time series search and explore database, web interface, and web services API. Research on Philadelphia real estate time series towards an understanding of gentrification in the city.
• 2006-2007: Research Staff, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Ongoing work on TAOS.
• 2001 – 2006: Associate Director, Liniac Project, University of Pennsylvania (http://liniac.upenn.edu). Head of successor project to Eniac 2000 Project, the cluster computation facility at the University of Pennsylvania, supporting the CIS department, Genomics institute, and the Astrophysics Group. Work on the Taiwan-America Occultation Survey Project (TAOS, http://taos.asiaa.sinica.edu.tw/) collaboration under the aegis of the Cyber-Universe Survey Project (CUSP):
  • data analysis; design, setup, programming, and management of clusters in Philadelphia and onsite at the TAOS telescopes in Taiwan;
  • software development including telescope control software, Virtual Astronomical Pipelines, a generic astronomical analysis pipeline and network based archiving and data disbursement software for NVO and TAOS, and Clubmask, a database driven installation, job scheduling, and resource management software for Linux clusters (http://clubmask.sf.net);
  • Collaborator on software architecture design for Large-scale Synoptic Telescope (LSST), Gamma Ray Burster follow-up subsystem software for TAOS, and on the Southern Edgeworth-Kuiper (SEKS) survey conducted at Mt. Stromlo Observatory in Australia.
• 1998 – 2001: Associate Director, Eniac 2000 Project, University of  Pennsylvania. Head of multidisciplinary university-wide project funded by Intel ($2 million) to create a large multiprocessor cluster. Work done involved design, setup, programming and management of one of the earliest large Linux clusters, and coordinating people involved on a cross-disciplinary effort, support for researchers, and project management. Projects included benchmark driven performance optimization, development of a custom Linux distribution for clusters, XML based website software, workspace and project management software, cluster system software including adaptive modifications to EASY scheduler. Organized and reviewed papers for the Extreme Linux Track at Linux Expo, ‘99. Provided development support for PlasmoDB and ToxoDB, the Genomics Institute’s parasite gene sequence databases (http://www.plasmodb.org, http://www.toxodb.org).
• 1994 – 1997: Research Assistant, Cosmology, University of Pennsylvania. Graduate Work. Developed cmbcalc theory-experiment comparison software.
• 1991 – 1995: Teaching Assistant, Bombay University, U. Penn. Undergraduate physics and math labs and recitations.

Education

• 2002, Spring: Ph.D. in Physics, University of Pennsylvania, Topic: Missing Energy in the Universe: Quintessence and the Microwave Background. Advisor: Prof. P. J. Steinhardt.
• 1992, Spring: Bachelor of Science in Physics, Bombay University, Bombay, India.

Selected Papers

• R. R. Caldwell, Rahul Dave, P. J. Steinhardt: Cosmological Imprint of an Energy Component with General Equation-of-State (Phys.Rev.Lett. 80 (1998) 1582-1585, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/9708069).
• Rahul Dave, R.R. Caldwell, P. J. Steinhardt: Sensitivity of Microwave Background Power Spectrum in Quintessence Models to Initial Conditions (Phys.Rev. D66 (2002) 023516, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0206372).
• Pavlos Protopapas, Joseph Giammarco, Lorenzo Faccioli, Mitchell Struble, Rahul Dave, Charles Alcock: Finding outlier light curves in catalogs of periodic variable stars, (MNRAS, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10327.x, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0505495).
• Lehner, M et.al: The Taiwanese-American Occultation Survey: The Multi-Telescope Robotic Observatory (Submitted to PASP, 2008, http://arxiv.org/abs/0802.0303)
• Kenneth Steif, Rahul Dave: Geographic techniques for statistical predictions of future gentrification in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods (in preparation, 2008).