Software Engineer | Physics Enthusiast | Developer of Trokam
Bio
Nicolas was born in Valparaíso, Chile. He studied Electronic Engineering at the
Santa María Technical University. Together with other engineers,
he co-founded the company Investec, which later became
Aplik — a venture that spanned from 1994 to 2008.
Between 2008 and 2018, he worked at the Paranal Observatory of the
European Southern Observatory (ESO).
Since 2020, he has been working at
Science and Technology Corporation (S&T) in the Netherlands.
Nicolas is an experienced Senior Software Engineer with a strong background in
C++ and Python development on Linux environments.
He has over 20 years of experience in designing high-performance software for scientific computing.
He has a proven ability to solve complex algorithmic challenges, optimize performance, and modernize legacy systems.
Deeply interested in open-source projects and cloud computing, he approaches problems with a hands-on and
pragmatic mindset.
A physics enthusiast from an early age, Nicolas is particularly interested in the fundamental physics of both
quantum mechanics and
gravitation,
and in the deep connection between them.
He also enjoys learning about the history of science and how models of reality evolve over time.
For instance, he admires how Sir Isaac Newton imagined that light was made of small corpuscles —
a model that became less popular as the wave model of light provided better explanations for certain phenomena.
However, after Max Planck’s assumption that light is exchanged in discrete quanta to explain
black-body radiation,
and Albert Einstein’s subsequent use of the same idea to describe the
photoelectric effect,
the corpuscles made a comeback in the form of
photons.
The word corpusk is a stylized version of “corpuscle”.
Developer of Trokam
Trokam is an intuitive online service that provides insights into the reach of specific news topics.
For example, you can easily explore how many people are reached by news about
Ukraine,
Taylor Swift,
or Keir Starmer.
Trokam presents this information in a clear and accessible way through well-designed visualizations.
