Chad Baker accidentally stumbled into simulation software development when he developed Python models to help explain experimental results of his automotive catalyst testing apparatus while doing research for his MS in mechanical engineering at University of Texas at Austin.
He then went on to refine this skills with deeper efforts during his PhD research, went on to work for Ford Motor Company for 6 years developing thermal systems simulations and integrating them into full vehicle simulations, and then went to work for the National Renewable Energy Lab (now known as National Lab of the Rockies) in Golden, CO for 6 years.
Since joining the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) group at ETH in September 2025, Chad has shifted to working on geothermal energy simulation.
In this talk, Chad will share lessons he’s learned from years of practical efforts in collaborative coding for research software engineering, focusing on collaborative coding, code quality, systems modeling architecture, serialization/deserialization, assessing performance, and using Rust under the hood to accelerate Python code.