Hi, I'm Damien.
I'm interested in science, research, education, and technology.
I work as a Research Data Specialist in the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform at the University of Melbourne in Australia. My background is in research in the area of perception (vision and hearing; more information about my research) and in teaching perception and research skills. I have a particular interest in the development of computational skills in researchers, and I have created resources such as "Programming for psychology in Python" and "Fundamentals of data and coding for psychology". I also enjoy using the functionality of the modern web to create interactive instructional material, such as an image Fourier analysis explorer, a simulator of visually-responsive neurons, and an explorer for spectral distributions in a visual scene.
Technology-wise, I use Python for pretty much everything—except for web-based projects, where I use JavaScript (recently via TypeScript, using Deno).
Recently, I have been particularly enjoying using xarray for structured data representation and storage.
I am also a fan of veusz for creating figures, pymc for Bayesian analyses, and Code Ocean for producing reproducible analysis workflows.
I am a long-time Linux user and like using simple interfaces.
Personally, I enjoy running and usually get out for a run a few times a week.
I occasionally write posts on various topics:
- Using custom data types in Python: reflections on the use of type hints
- Race report: Orange Running Festival half-marathon
- Labelled multi-dimensional arrays for representing research data
- Creating heatmap visualisations for posterior distributions
- Extracting files from a remote zip archive
- Race report: Carcoar Cup half-marathon
- A Bayesian approach to perceptual difference scaling
- Benefits of storing and accessing research data in zip files
- Reproducing intention in research programming
- Camera shake and the stream-bounce effect
- Presenting images on the web with a higher apparent bit-depth
- Fitting models with circular data in PyMC
- Using containers for reproducible and collaborative computation
- An interactive image Fourier analysis website
- A web version of an interactive visual neuron simulator
- Rendering stimuli for perception studies using Mitsuba 2
- Motion-defined surfaces and surface lightness
- Code review as part of a research workflow
Please feel free to contact me at damien@djmannion.net.