Matt Fowles
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What he does:
- Matt creates new software, debugs old software, and integrates new devices for underwater robots. The software covers every aspect of the vehicle including mission planning, vehicle control, and data analysis.
Math on the job:
- Converting data between reference frames requires healthy doses of both Linear Algebra and Trig and is one of the most common activities requiring Math. A vehicle's navigation requires some advanced algorithms such as Kalman Filters and fairly basic Control Theory. Post mission data analysis tools often use cubic splines and basic statistics. Of course, all software benefits from grounding in Discrete Mathematics and algorithms. In particular he has found a firm grasp of graph algorithms and string parsing techniques (like DFAs and recursive descent parsers) quite useful.
Matt's background:
- Matt was an honors Math and Computer Science major at Swarthmore College and has since moved to Cambridge where he works.
Matt's advice to students:
- Do what you enjoy and during job interviews remember to smile and to make eye contact. Also, for those of you who want to do anything involved in Computer Science, take a compilers course. It can show you how well Mathematical Theory can fit into practice.