Personal info
- Date of birth: 15 Dec 1989
- Nationality: South African
- Language(s): English
Education
2014–2016 Doctor of Philosophy, Rhodes University, Dept of Mathematics
- Thesis: A contribution to the study of nonholonomic Riemannian manifolds.
- Supervisors: Dr Claudiu C. Remsing, Dr Olga Rossi.
2012–2013 Master of Science (with distinction), Rhodes University, Dept of Mathematics
- Thesis: Invariant optimal control on the three-dimensional semi-Euclidean group: control affine
and quadratic Hamilton–Poisson systems.
- Supervisor: Dr Claudiu C. Remsing.
2011 Bachelor of Science (Honours), Rhodes University, Dept of Mathematics
- Distinction in Mathematics (96%).
2008–2010 Bachelor of Science, Rhodes University
- Distinctions in Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Computer Science (avg 89%).
Work experience
Industry experience
Feb 2024–Present Senior Developer, BSC Quant
BSC Quant is a quantitative finance startup that is developing an innovative and sophisticated data-driven algorithmic
trading platform.
I serve as the primary technical architect and developer of this platform, though my role spans software development,
data engineering, data science, DevOps and MLOps:
- Solution design and implementation of the trading algorithms and platform, the infrastructure it runs on, and the
data architecture (data models and ETL pipelines).
- Management and maintenance of the above.
- Analytics and development of ML algorithms, and their integration into the platform.
Tech:
Apache Spark
Databricks
Docker
Helm
Kubernetes
Python
Rust
SQL
Oct 2023–Jan 2024 Technical Lead, Business Science Corporation
Sep 2020–Oct 2023 Analytics Consultant, —
Oct 2018–Aug 2020 Analyst, —
Selected projects:
-
Logistics. Fuel consumption, asset utilisation, and labour utilisation diagnostics for a large logistics company, from the viewpoint of lean waste management principles. Starting as an intermediate analytics engineer on the fuel workstream, I became technical lead for the project.
My roles (analytics engineering and team lead):
- Development and maintenance of fuel consumption data model and pipelines. (This involved sophisticated transformations on billions of GPS positions.)
- Solution migration to Databricks, including migrating data sources to the client’s data warehouse and extensive QA of the latter. (I improved ETL pipeline robustness, decreased run time by over 80\%, and increased data quality.)
- Leading the team and ensuring solution uptime, result quality, and managing the planning and development of new features. Part of this involved overseeing the deployment of an entirely new asset utilisation solution.
- Client stakeholder engagement (technical and non-technical).
The above was reported to the users via an in-house BI tool.
Tech:
Azure Data Factory
Databricks
Python
Spark
SQL Server
SQL
-
Mining. Simulation and optimisation of plant processes at a large gold mine, in order to increase gold output
(particularly during periods of equipment downtime).
My roles (software development and integration):
- Development of a micro-service-based pipeline for running the optimiser and simulations, the fetching/transforming of source data, and the collection of results for reporting.
- The integration of the simulator and optimiser into the pipeline. (The actual simulator and optimiser were handled by other members of my team.)
- Assisted with the integration of a Power Apps + Power BI frontend.
- Technical solution documentation.
Tech:
Docker
Kubernetes
Power Apps
Power BI
Python
RabbitMQ
SQL
-
Healthcare. Development of an automated ML-based alert system for the early detection and prediction of outbreaks
in hospitals (for a large healthcare provider). Given the specialised nature of infection control, good engagement
with the client’s domain experts (including soliciting feedback on results) was crucial.
My roles (analytics engineering and data science):
- Developing and maintaining the ETL pipeline.
- Assistance with development (training, feature engineering, evaluation) of ML models.
- The development of a Power BI dashboard for reporting on outbreaks.
- Technical solution documentation.
- SLA support.
Tech:
Azure Data Factory
Databricks
Power BI
Python
SQL
-
Telecommunications. Regular delivery of contract recommendations for upgrade and migration campaigns at a large
telecommunications provider, together with reporting and post-campaign analysis. Strict adherence to numerous
business and regulatory rules was crucial.
My roles (SQL development and data analysis):
- Development, maintenance, and operation of several recommender systems.
- Design and implementation of a post-campaign analysis dashboard.
- Running ad hoc analyses upon request from client stakeholders.
Tech:
Excel
Oracle Apex
Oracle SQL
SAS
Academic experience
2017–Sep 2018 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rhodes University, Dept of Mathematics
Research areas:
- Topics in nonholonomic Riemannian geometry.
- The study of curves (particularly, using the method of moving frames) in homogeneous spaces.
2011–2016 Teaching Assistant, Rhodes University, Dept of Mathematics
2009–2010 Research Assistant, Rhodes University, Dept of Computer Science
Achievements
Academic honours and awards
2008–2011 Undergraduate
- Top science student in the academic year (2008–2010).
- Dean’s List and Academic Half-Colours (2008–2010).
- Graduated with Academic Honours.
- Most outstanding Bachelors graduate in the Faculty of Science (RU Foundation scholarship).
- Most outstanding Honours graduate in the Faculty of Science (Henry Bradlow scholarship).
2012–2016 Postgraduate
- Recipient of the 2014 South African Association for the Advancement of Science (S2A3) medallion. (Awarded for the
most outstanding MSc thesis at Rhodes University.)
Scholarships
2008–2011 Undergraduate
- RU scholarship (2009–2010); Alfred Beit scholarship (2009); Rhodes Governor’s scholarship (2010).
- RU Foundation scholarship (2011); NRF Innovations scholarship (2011).
2012–2016 Postgraduate
- Henry Bradlow scholarship (2012).
- RU Prestigious (Henderson) scholarship for MSc (2012–2013) and PhD (2014–2016).
- NRF–DAAD scholarship for MSc (2012–2013) and PhD (2014–2016).
2017–2018 Postdoctoral
- NRF Freestanding Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Publications
- D.I. Barrett, C.C. Remsing, On the Schouten and Wagner curvature tensors.
Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, II. Ser 72(2023), 1–26.
rg
- —, Restricted Jacobi fields.
Int. Electron. J. Geom. 14(2021), 247–265.
rg
- —, A note on flat nonholonomic Riemannian structures on three-dimensional Lie groups.
Beitr Algebra Geom 60(2019), 419–436
rg
- —, On geodesic invariance and curvature in nonholonomic Riemannian geometry.
Publ. Math. Debrecen 94(2019), 197–213.
rg
- D.I. Barrett, C.E. McLean, C.C. Remsing, Control systems on the Engel group.
J. Dyn. Control Syst. 25(2019), 377–402.
rg
- D.I. Barrett, R. Biggs and C.C. Remsing, Quadratic Hamilton–Poisson systems on $\mathfrak{se}(1, 1)^{*}_{-}$: the inhomogeneous case,
Acta Appl. Math. 154(2018), 189–230.
rg
- D.I. Barrett, R. Biggs, C.C. Remsing and O. Rossi, Invariant nonholonomic Riemannian structures on three-dimensional Lie groups,
J. Geom. Mech. 8(2016), 139–167.
rg
- D.I. Barrett, R. Biggs and C.C. Remsing, Affine distributions on a four-dimensional extension of the semi-Euclidean group,
Note Mat. 35(2015), 81–97.
rg
- —, Quadratic Hamilton–Poisson systems on $\mathfrak{se}(1, 1)^{*}_{-}$: the homogeneous case,
Int. J. Geom. Methods Mod. Phys. 12(2015), 1550011 (17 pages).
rg
- —, Optimal control of drift-free invariant control systems on the group of motions of the Minkowski plane,
Proc. 13th European Control Conference, Strasbourg, France, 2014, 2466–2471.
rg
- —, Affine subspaces of the Lie algebra $\mathfrak{se}(1, 1)$,
Eur. J. Pure Appl. Math. 7(2014), 140–155.
rg