The office of Research Partnerships and Enterprise Creation builds research capacity and opportunity at Thompson Rivers University through research partnership and collaboration with external organizations and industry partners.

Kamloops Innovation | Oct 2012 - Jan 2023

Founding Executive Director

Kamloops Innovation (KI) is a technology incubator created to support commercialization and technological innovation in Kamloops. KI is a non- profit organization that enables new entrepreneurs to jump-start their business with assistance and mentorship. Kamloops Innovation's mission is to inspire, nurture, and accelerate technology-based startup businesses in Kamloops and the surrounding regions.

Thompson Rivers University | Oct 2010 - Sep 2012

Director, University-Industry Liaison Office

My second role at TRU was starting up the University-Industry Liaison Office within the Research Office. This built on from work I started in my previous role but focused entirely on forming research collaborations and working relationships between industry and TRU faculty and students. This work was particularly rewarding because of the impact it had both on the progression of TRU and on local industrial partners. I was shifting away from my academic research into administration so it was great to be still involved tangentially in that world. I was able to channel a broad science background and an academic career in a new direction. It was an opportunity to gain experience in building trust and consensus. During this time I was given the freedom to develop new supports for students and faculty to commercialize their ideas and innovations. This became the genesis of the TRU Generator and the dedicated on-campus entrepreneurial support.

Thompson Rivers University | Jan 2009 - Sep 2010

University Research Capacity Developer

After my thesis defence I stayed on at University of Sussex doing postdoc work and external research contracts. I had been in the UK for almost 10 years when my wife and I decided I would take a postdoc position at Simon Fraser University in the school of engineering in the area of biomimetic mechatronics. There was several months required to finish up work in UK and pack up the house before my start date at SFU. During that time my wife and I decided that we didn’t want to endure long commutes and live in an expensive city. We wanted a yard, and the outdoors for our then 4 year old son. We were both from the same area of BC so we moved back to Kamloops to make a go of it there. When I arrived in Kamloops, Thompson Rivers University was transitioning to a research university from a primarily teaching university and before that a college. I secured a role fostering faculty and students to more effectively engage in research, innovation and development. I was building external linkages for research collaboration. Funding for applied and industry supported research was being pushed Federally and we worked to advantage of TRU’s agility in doing these types of projects.

Ambiental Technical Solutions | Jan 2008 - Dec 2008

Senior Software Engineer

I was brought on at Ambiental to add new features to the software and increase the speed and throughput of simulated flood events. Ambiental offered clients simulation of river, tidal/coastal and surface water flooding. Using high-resolution LiDAR data and positional information of man-made structures, the simulation generated information on the depth, duration and extent of flooding as well as water velocities and flow-paths down to the level of individual properties. One of my tasks was to implement multithreading and develop from scratch a scheduling platform that chunked up massive computer simulation cycles and ran them on multiple processors on multiple computers. Yes kids, on processors in PCs sitting in the same room as me. The original developer was long gone and there was no code comments or documentation. Step 1) figure out what these thousands of lines of code did, step 2) make it better. This was a fun job. My research had required a great deal of creating simulated environments used to test and evolve controllers and neural networks. To do this I developed my coding skills to reasonably high level (IMHO). I really miss coding. It is probably the only activity that I looked forward to doing hours on hours. The puzzle solving, the debugging, the challenge, creating the “art” behind the function that only you would see or understand. I love what I am doing now, but if I could spin back time I think would just as happy on the software engineer alternate timeline.

University of Sussex | Jan 2005 - Jan 2008

Research Fellow

I finished and submitted my PhD thesis in 2005. While I waited for my defence to come together I continued work on publications coming from that research and took on “postdoc” role in a EPSRC funded project: "Rapid Insect-like Visual Learning Algorithms." This research looked to formalize the way in which insects rapidly and efficiently learn visual navigation in complex environments, and to develop general principles and novel classes of algorithms that capture this form of learning. The work had a strong overlap with the robotic sensor platform, computer simulation and control software I developed during my PhD. There were a number of lab-mates and faculty members working on this project and many publications came from the work. I had been working toward this point for some time. This was the research academic phase of my career. Immensly enjoyable, solving challenges, uncovering new knowledge, a great lifestyle in Brighton with my wife and 1- year-old son. But I could see ahead, the academic treadmill I needed to quickly step onto if I was going to advance my career. I was less motivated by that side of the profession.

UK Space Agency | Jan 2002 - Dec 2002

Research Scientist

So this is where my work and academic histories get messy and intertwined. All through my PhD I did paid work on various research projects. Some overlapped strongly with my thesis topic and moved my research forward. Other projects did not overlap but provided me new skills and equipement that I could use in my research. My supervisor was quite active in research involving external organizations and consortiums. One of these projects was working in collaboration with British National Space Centre on the "Improved Mission Autonomy and Robustness Programme". In this project we investigated role allocation and collective decision-making in multi-robot systems, and successfully transferred controllers, artificially evolved in simulation, onto real-world robot teams. I collaborated with another PhD candidate in our lab. I was on the development of the physical robot team and sensor platform, Matt was on the simulation and neural network software. Several publications came out of this project.

SKR Consultants | Jan 1999 - Dec 1999

Biologist

I knew I wanted to do graduate studies. My first degree was in Biology but I was an engineer at heart. So I started looking to do an engineering masters. I quickly found that the engineering schools I was hoping to attend would not accept a BSc in Biological Sciences without substantial “upgrading”. Through an odd chain of events, I cold-emailed Dr Phil Husbands and asked to join his lab at the Sussex University in Brighton, UK. The Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics was research group in a progressively multidisciplinary faculty. Sussex University was more than open to bringing my knowledge and experience (genetics, animal behaviour, evolutionary process) into what was essentially a computer science and engineering degree. So what does this have to do with SKR Consultants? SKR was another one of my Coop employers during my undergrad. I liked PFC but only had 12 months to make as much money as possible before moving to the UK. As a government employe there was no opportunity for overtime. At SKR there was a LOT of opportunity for overtime. I worked at SKR doing stream classification and fisheries evaluation in the forest industry. I really liked this job. It was lots of outdoors work, long days, long weeks, camp living, helicopters and float planes.

Natural Resources Canada | Jan 1998 - Jan 1999

Research Technician

I started working at the Pacific forestry Centre (PFC) while completing my BSc in Biological Sciences at University of Victoria. I had a number of Coop terms in different research labs at PFC and after graduating with my BSc I took my first post-degree “real” job. I loved it there. I was in Rene Alfaro’s lab with a great group of scientists and techs. I think if I hadn’t been attracted to do graduate work in behaviour-based robotics I would have looked to do a PhD in-line with the genetics work we were doing on spruce tree resistance to attack by the white pine weevil. Maybe I would still be working at PFC today if I had.

My Education

Take a look at my formal education

DPhil, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (British High Commission Scholarship)University of Sussex | 2006

BSc (with Distinction), Biological ScienceUniversity of Victoria | 1998

About Me

I am re-engaging with my software development past through upskilling in Data Science.

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