Hi, my name is Mathew Topper and Data Only Greater is my consultancy business. I have a degree in mathematics from the University of Southampton and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. I have worked for universities, consultancies, not-for-profits and, most recently, for myself. My roles typically involve research and development, particularly for ocean energy, and software development.
I have significant experience in technology transfer, turning complex ideas into concrete products. I have developed products for desktop and web, from design to deployment. I have helped my teams adopt modern technologies, allowing them to develop new and existing products more efficiently.
I have conducted research on a wide selection of topics including tidal energy converter hydrodynamics, numerical wave tanks, wave energy resource modelling, offshore mission planning, levelised cost of energy assessment, submarine cables, verification and validation and software needs assessment. This research has resulted in over 150 citations to my published outputs.
I am proficient in multiple programming languages, including Python, MATLAB, Typescript and Fortran. I have experience of building applications in the cloud, using contemporary techniques such as serverless and infrastructure as code. I have contributed to multiple open source projects and also maintain many. I am continuously adopting new techniques and technology in order to produce maintainable, error free code.
Beyond my written publications, I am also a skilled public speaker and content creator. I have presented my work at multiple academic and industrial conferences. I have recorded (and edited) popular instructional videos which are published on the Data Only Greater YouTube channel. I also have experience of teaching at undergraduate level.
My experience on the cutting edge of research software development, combined with my ability to grasp complex subjects quickly, has given me the skills to develop ambitious, yet achievable, project proposals. Building a strong team is also vital to success and I have nurtured a wide network of contacts across academia and industry, particularly in the field of ocean renewable energy.
BlueBox was a 2 year, sustainable energy authority of Ireland funded, R&D project, with the goal of developing an IoT system for renewably powered offshore sensing platforms. The internet and Iridium satellite network are used to allow communication from any location.
My role in the project was to develop a cloud based web-application for:
- managing users, tenants and devices;
- sending and receiving messages;
- storing data and visualizing results.
I implemented the system using a serverless architecture, deployed to AWS, and managed with the Pulumi infrastructure-as-code service. Standard IoT protocols, such as MQTT, were also utilised.
The BlueBox software will be released soon, under an open-source license.
DTOcean is a desktop application for techno-economic modelling of ocean energy arrays. It was initially developed as part of €10 million, 3-year EU project with over 10 partners, and subsequently enhanced by myself in collaboration with Sandia National Laboratories.
Highlights of my contribution to the project are:
- the data model and execution pipeline;
- the desktop interface and installer;
- the global optimisation functions.
Using DTOcean, I published three journal articles and one conference paper (as first author), in collaboration with my colleagues. I also created documentation and instructional videos for using the software.
DTOcean is written in python and postgreSQL and is available under the GPL license from its GitHub organisation.
ForeCoast® Marine is an online decision support tool for offshore operations developed by JBA Consulting. The Control Desk module provides detailed weather window and vessel routing predictions based on simulations powered by ensemble weather and metocean forecasts.
Working with the UK Met Office, I developed simulation pipelines to convert the ensemble forecasts into initial conditions for numerical models (such as SWAN). I also automated the execution of the simulations and processed the results to create statistical predictions for local conditions within a site of interest.
For further information on ForeCoast® Marine, please visit the JBA Consulting website.
Data Only Greater (/ˈdeɪtə ˈəʊnli ˈɡreɪtə/) started as the name of my blog after it came to me in a dream. I always thought it would make a snazzy business name and, after moving to Ireland in 2017, and accepting an offer to subcontract for Sandia National Labs, I registered Data Only Greater as my trading name.
I've been in business for over five years now and had the opportunity to work with Sandia on DTOcean and other cool projects such as WecOptTool, WEC-Sim and PRIMRE. For the last two years, I've also been working part time with Wave Venture on BlueBox.
This website has also been created from scratch by me, using the SvelteKit javascript framework. If you would like me to make you a website or help you achieve your goals, then I'm always looking for new opportunities to expand my business. Get in touch using the form below!