Stephen Ingram

Skill Set

coding

Writing code is a natural component of my regular workflow. I have experience building software with system-level languages like C and Java, as well as employing scripting languages like Python to process and clean raw data files. A full list of familiar languages and software tools can be found on my resume.
visualization

I believe that looking at the data is a critical step in almost any data analysis. As part of the InfoVis group at UBC, I have discussed visualization techniques and evaluations since 2005. In my own experience, I use Tableau for exploration of static tables, and Matlab for iterative exploration while developing algorithms.
statistics/machine-learning

Stats/ML are a suite of techniques that help build models of data distributions as well as give guidance about how much confidence to put in those models. As a doctoral student, I have devised "unsupervised learning" techniques for data exploration. As a quant, I have used a variety of supervised learning techniques for fitting model parameters and statistical hypothesis testing for confirmatory analyses.
computer graphics

Familiarity with computer graphics APIs like OpenGL has yielded at least two benefits for me as a researcher/analyst. First, I have leveraged the graphics pipeline to build novel visualization techniques that scale to large datasets. Second, I have exploited the parallelism of graphics processors (GPUs) to speed up existing analysis techniques.

financial

My exposure to finance is on the trading side of things. I have researched the following:
- Order-book-level market-impact analysis
- Long-term trading system development (monthly)
- Short-term trading system development (daily)
- Trading algorithm ("Algo") development
- Automated trading system ("Bot") development
text analysis

I have been involved in several projects to help researchers navigate unordered collections of documents. These projects are:
- Overview
- Glimmer (see docs example)
- Metacombine
scientific computing

My experience with scientific computing has focused on numerical linear algebra and nonlinear optimization, having taken graduate courses in both these topics. In my own research, I have experience with
- Nonlinear optimization techniques like Quasi-Newton methods
- Fast methods for exact matrix inverses like matrix reordering.
- Fast methods for approximate matrix inverses like Krylov subspace, and multigrid methods.
bioinformatics

I consulted with BC Cancer Agency to development software for analyzing DNA copy number alterations. The project involved collaborating with the lead researcher, Sohrab Shah, to design a visual console for analyzing copy numbers and labels across chromosomes.

Color Thief

Color Thief is an iOS app for color transfer. It harnesses a fast GPU code I wrote for quickly swapping colors between photos using phone hardware.
Overview

Overview is a tool for exploring large, unlabelled document datasets. It is targeted at helping journalists quickly analyze text dumps.
Glimmer

Glimmer is an algorithm for fast multidimensional scaling. Significant speed gains are achieved by leveraging GPU parallelism.
I1 Optimization

I1 is an algorithm for stochastic optimization based on Information Filtering. It is designed to complement the optimization algorithm called K1 based on the Kalman Filter.
Minimum Degree Matrix Reordering Tutorial

I wrote a tutorial on different matrix reordering algorithms. Minimum degree matrix reordering increases the efficiency of the matrix inverse.
Small World Graph Visualization

I built a graph visualization tool based on Jarke van Wijk's paper using the prefuse toolkit.
MetaCombine

The MetaCombine Project at Emory University assessed using semantic clustering as a means of exploring digital libraries.
TeamView

TeamView is a tool for analyzing and labelling biological tracking data. It was used by researchers in the BORG Lab at Georgia Tech.
Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

This report describes an algorithm for computing fast nonnegative matrix factorizations.
Growbot

In 2004, my PC game, Growbot, was one of the Student Showcase winners in the Independent Games Festival.

Glint: An MDS Framework for Costly Distance Functions: Stephen Ingram, Tamara Munzner. Proceedings of SIGRAD 2012.
DimStiller: Workflows for dimensional analysis and reduction.: Stephen Ingram, Tamara Munzner, Veronika Irvine, Melanie Tory, Steven Bergner, and Torsten Möller. IEEE VAST 2010.
Glimmer: Multilevel MDS on the GPU.: Stephen Ingram, Tamara Munzner, Mark Olano. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 15(2):249-261, Mar/Apr 2009.
Geometric Texture Synthesis by Example.: Pravin Bhat, Stephen Ingram, and Greg Turk. Eurographics SGP 2004.
Automatic Collage Using Texture Synthesis.: Stephen Ingram, and Pravin Bhat. Smart Graphics 2004.