This week we welcome Meg Ray (@teach_python) as our PyDev of the Week! Meg teaches programming to other teachers and has developed Python-related curriculum. Meg is also the author of Code This Game, a book which will be coming out in August 2019. Let’s take some time to get to know her better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I started out as an actor. I studied theater and moved to New York City to start out my career. One of the jobs I did to stay afloat while I was starting out was teaching theater classes to kids. I taught theater programs for students with disabilities as well as homeless youth. This lead me to my career as a special education teacher. I really enjoyed teaching and mentoring young people, particularly young people who have had challenges in their lives.

Around this time in my life, I began to learn to program. I was having a lot of fun with it, and I also started to understand computer science education as an equity issue. I was hired at a school to teach a software engineering and game design class that was required for all 9th graders. I learned as I went. I re-designed the course to include Python in addition to block coding and to be more inclusive of students with learning differences.

Now I develop curriculum and train other educators to teach computer science. Through the Cornell Tech Teacher in Residence initiative, I have been providing in-classroom coaching and support to K-8 teachers. I’ve also been working on my first book! Code This Game! is an intro to Python and computer science through designing a game. It was really fun to have the opportunity to apply everything I’ve learned about teaching Python to kids in a creative way.

On a personal note, I’m a new mom. One of the priorities that I have now is building community. I DM for a D&D (with babies!) campaign, and have been thinking about other ways to make space for family and community in my life. One thing that I love about Python is the Python community. For me that means participating in my local meetup, collaborating with others to support Python eductors, and attending Pycon as a family. Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Meg Ray →

This week we welcome Scott Shawcroft (@tannewt) as our PyDev of the Week! Scott is the lead developer of CircuitPython, a variant of the Python programming language made for microcontrollers. If you’d like to see what else Scott is up to, his website is a good place to start. Let’s take a few moments to get to know Scott better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I’m Scott, I graduated from the University of Washington in 2009 in Computer Engineering. Afterwards, I joined the Maps team at Google where I worked on rendering and styling of the map. I left in 2015 to do my own thing. I designed a modular flight controller system for racing quadcopters and learned about hardware at the same time. My hobbies include running, rock climbing, video gaming and thrift shopping for retro electronics (so I can put CircuitPython in them.) Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Scott Shawcroft →

This week we welcome Geir Arne Hjelle (@gahjelle) as our PyDev of the Week! Geir is a regular contributor to Real Python. You can also find some of his work over on Github. Let’s take a few moments to get to know Geir now!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

Sure. I grew up in a beautiful village on an island in the north of Norway. My family has since moved south, but I still go north and visit friends and enjoy the nature regularly. I’ve always enjoyed playing with numbers, so I quite naturally ended up studying mathematics at the University. I did both a Master’s and a PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. During the PhD, I also got to spend about a year in my favorite big city: Barcelona. To this day, I spend a week or two in Barcelona every year.

After my studies, I lived three years in St. Louis, Missouri doing a Post.Doc at Washington University. Then I moved back to Norway, and I’m currently living in Oslo working with data science, mostly using Python.

I spend a fair bit of my free time with programming as well. I write tutorials for Real Python and helping teach kids how to code. I enjoy being outdoors. In Norway there are great opportunities for going skiing in the winter, and hiking in the summer. At this very moment, I’m actually basking in the sun in a hammock in the forest just outside of Oslo. Finally, I should note that I love getting together with friends for a board game session. Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Geir Arne Hjelle →

This week we welcome Meredydd Luff (@meredydd) as our PyDev of the Week! Meredydd is the co-founder of Anvil and a core developer for the Skulpt package. You can learn more about Meredydd on his website. Let’s take a few moments to get to know him better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I’ve loved programming since I was first introduced to BASIC at the age of 7. I come from Cambridge (the old one in the UK, not the relatively-new one near Boston), and I studied here too. I actually started out as a biologist, but then switched to computer science for my PhD.

I think programming is the closest thing to magic we have, and I love watching and helping people get their hands on this power. My PhD research was about building usable parallel programming systems, and now I work on Anvil, a tool to make web programming faster and easier for everyone (with Python!).

When I’m not programming, I fly light aeroplanes, which I guess is what happens when your inner six-year-old makes your life decisions. I used to dance competitively (including a few years on England’s top Latin formation team), but it turns out international competitions and startups don’t play well together, so the startup won.
Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Meredydd Luff →

This week we welcome Valentin Haenel (@esc___) as our PyDev of the Week! Valentin is a core developer of Numba and several other packages that you can see either on his website or on Github. He has also given several talks at various conferences in Europe. Let’s spend some time getting to know Valentin better!

Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):

I went to the University of Edinburgh to get a bachelor in computer science and to the Bernstein Center in Berlin to get a master in computational neuroscience. I tend to favour more traditional computer science topics these days such as compression algorithms and compilers. In my spare time, I spend time with my lovely wife Gloria, fly quad-line sports kites and ride longboards through Berlin. I’ve been doing Python and open-source on Github for about 10 years. Continue reading PyDev of the Week: Valentin Haenel →