Felix Effenberger

Felix Effenberger

Researcher / Engineer / Freelancer / Trainer

Curriculum Vitae

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Basic information

  • Freelance software engineer / data scientist / researcher / trainer
  • LinkedIn
  • Citizenship: German

Personal Profile

I am a Mathematician (PhD) and computer scientist by training, turned neuroscientist, turned entrepreneur. I am located in Germany and work for my own startups and as freelance software engineer / data scientist / researcher / trainer. My research interests are in neuroscience, mathematics, data analysis, and machine learning. I am also interested in creating open source software.

Education

  • PhD. Mathematics, summa cum laude, 2007 – 2011
  • Diploma (M.Sc. equivalent) Mathematics and Computing Science, with distinction, 2002 – 2005
    • University of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
    • Thesis Topic: Topology-based Vector Field Visualization on 2-Manifolds.
    • Advisor: Prof. Daniel Weiskopf
    • Areas of study: pure and applied mathematics (analysis, algebra, geometry, topology, statistics, numerical mathematics), computing science (algorithm design, databases, scientific visualization).
    • Scientific visit (9 months) at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. Collaboration with Prof. Daniel Weiskopf.

Experience

  • Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), September 2017 – Present
    • Stealth Silicon Valley Startup, San Francisco, CA, USA
    • Worked on neuroscience-inspired signal processing with focus on image and video compression. Responsible for everything tech, managed team of 5 engineers. Scrum master, chose technologies and set coding standards, managed cloud infrastructure, did code reviews. Deep dives into engineering problems where necessary.
    • Raised angel investments and 3m seed round.
    • Technologies: Python, C, C++, Assembly, CUDA, OpenCL, ObjectiveC, GitLab, Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure
  • Postdoctoral researcher, September 2015 – September 2017
  • Freelance Software Developer, May 2013 – October 2015
  • Co-Founder and Full Stack Developer, January 2013 – January 2016
    • modelogiq GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany
    • Python and Clojure backend developer and JavaScript frontend developer for fintech startup.
    • Technologies: Python, Django, Clojure, JavaScript
  • Postdoctoral researcher, November 2011 – September 2015
    • Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
    • Postdoctoral Advisor: Prof. Jürgen Jost, Jost group
    • Research in mathematical neurobiology and computational neuroscience, focus on processes of self-organization in cortical neural networks and the fundamentals of learning (synaptic plasticity). Modeling and analysis of spiking neuron data. Published several research papers, a book chapter, and developed software hdnet.
    • Technologies: Python, Sun Grid Engine, LaTeX
  • Research assistant, June 2004 – October 2007

Research interests

My research interests are in (computational) neuroscience, (discrete) mathematics and (high-dimensional) data analysis.

Publications

See research page.

Software

See software page.

Teaching

See teaching page.

Summer schools

Scholarships & Awards

Professional service

Skills

Languages

  • German: native
  • English: full professional proficiency
  • French: professional working proficiency
  • Italian: elementary proficiency

Expertise

  • Mathematics: graph theory, group theory, topology (discrete and continuous), real and complex analysis, differential geometry, measure theory, probability theory, statistics, information theory

  • Computing Science: design and analysis of efficient algorithms, theory of computation, fundamentals of database design, software verification, visualization and user interface design

  • Neuroscience and Machine Learning: mathematical foundations of neuroscience, single cell and network dynamics, neural coding, information theory for neural systems, statistical machine learning

  • Scientific visualization: topology based visualization, dense and sparse visualization methods, GPU based visualization, user interface design

  • Communications and Signal Processing: probability theory, stochastic processes, information theory, statistics and statistical estimation

Software Engineering Skills

  • Programming Languages: Assembly, C, C++, Clojure, Go, Java (J2SE, J2EE), JavaScript, Matlab, ObjectiveC, OpenCL, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Shell scripting, SQL

  • Miscellaneous: Systems administration in UNIX/Linux environments, DVCS (Git) and Subversion, Productivity applications (LaTeX, office software), Cloud computing (Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure), Infrastructure as code tools (Terraform, Ansible), Agile development methodologies