BenEngebreth.org

Ben Engebreth
ben.engebreth [at] gmail.com
Portland Oregon

I'm a programmer and data analyst with a background in science and engineering. A recurring theme in almost all of my work is the illumination of otherwise invisible information via aggregation, tracking and analysis.

Experience:

Programmer - camelcamelcamel.com (2010 - Present)

First engineering hire at camelcamelcamel and 50% of the coding team. Responsible for all aspects of site direction, design, development and maintenance. Camelcamelcamel received over 13 million pageviews in December of 2017 and is widely regarded as the premier price tracking tool for Amazon.com

Programmer & Data Analyst (2005 - Present)

I've consulted in the past and run the websites deptofnumbers.com and (formerly) housingtracker.net. HousingTracker was widely cited in the runup and aftermath of the housing bubble as a source for real-time housing price and inventory data. Department of Numbers now highlights numerous other economic time series including unemployment, jobs, rent and income data. Clients have included hedge funds, Wall Street research firms and government agencies.

Programmer - Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University (2010 - 2012)

In collaboration with Geophysicist Felix Waldhauser, I developed a web tool for analysis of earthquake data combining Dr. Waldhauser's real-time earthquake relocation algorithms with map and cross-sectional visualization tools.

Programmer & Data Analyst - Majestic Research (2007 - 2009)

At Majestic I worked as a data analyst and programmer in the company's R&D group. My primary responsibility was to create new, informative research products from proprietary datasets. This work required gathering disparate data from various sources to produce informative analysis for clients seeking economic or financial insight.

Research Fellow - Eyebeam Openlab (2005-2006)

In 2005 I was granted a 1 year Research Fellowship at Eyebeam - an art & technology non-profit. I worked in the organization's OpenLab to promote "R&D for the public domain" by building open source web-based tools and data sets. Towards those ends, I produced a web application to track and analyze electricity use called Personal Kyoto and a web tool for collecting and republishing bookmarks from the social bookmarking site Del.icio.us. I collaborated with artist Evan Roth to create White Glove Tracking - a crowdsourced study of Michael Jackson's first moonwalk. I also worked with artist Bill Dolson to design synthetic meteor trajectories for his Reentry exhibition.

Programmer - Jet Propulsion Laboratory (2003-2005)

As an engineer at JPL I designed and developed a GUI interface using MATLAB for spacecraft trajectory optimization as well as initial guess software that helps the user provide more physically appropriate starting guesses to the optimizer. I also did numerous preliminary design and feasibility studies for spacecraft trajectories.

Education:

University of Colorado - 2003

M.S. Aerospace Engineering Sciences

University of Georgia - 2001

B.S. Physics