Andrew Bolster

Background

Data Scientist and Systems Researcher with a wide range of skills and experiences across technical, business, and entrepreneurial fields.

Completed my PhD Research at the University of Liverpool as part of a Anglo-French Defence Programme around Autonomous Submarines for Marine Survey and Monitoring.

Specific interests in and around distributed systems, ‘trust’ in insecure network environments, software engineering best practices, STEM outreach, community management and development, market analysis and innovation strategy.

Experienced Speaker, Panelist and commentator, with appearances at Regional and National events from TEDx and All-Island Innovation Conferences to representing the Northern Ireland technology and business communities in international trade-delegations.

Proficiency

Technical

Data Science, Software Engineering, Autonomous and Intelligent Systems Engineering, Embedded Systems, IoT, Linux/UNIX, Python, C/C++, Java, GPGPU (CUDA/OpenCL/Theano), Network Security and Engineering, Localisation/Positioning, Agent Development, OOP, TDD, Cloud and Distributed Systems Architecture, Heroku, Google Apps, High Performance Computing, GPGPU, Telecommunications Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Professional

Public Speaking, Presentation Development, Collaboration Facilitation, Client Relations, Event Mgmt., Project Mgmt., Marketing Strategy, Social Engagement Strategy, Operational Workflow Development, STEM Outreach.

Experience

Black Duck Software, Belfast

Senior R&D Manager [Black Duck Software] (2024 - Present)

Senior R&D Manager [Synopsys Software Integrity Group] (2022 - 2024)

Data Science Engineering Manager [NTT Application Security] (2020 - 2022)

Data Science Team Lead [WhiteHat Security] (2019 - 2020)

Initially hired as first Team lead, 1y promotion to Engineering Manager responsible for management, vision, strategy and technology.

Building a Data Science capability from scratch in an established cyber security leader.

Building and growing the Data Science team members in ML methodology and technology stack.

Aligning with cross-team leaders to find problems that can be solved with Data Science processes.

Working with cybersecurity leaders on feedback, risk, onboarding and training methodologies for ML/SME feature co-design.

“Data Tzar” around Data Privacy, Confidentially, Mobility and Cataloging.

AI tools review board and primary delivery partner for all AI/LLM derives tooling and capabilities across the organisation.

Delivering and Monitoring Machine Learning solutions to production.

Providing detailed and accessible documentation and explanation of advanced statistical and data science practices.

Evaluate/set architectural standards for the whole ML projects in working with the Chief Architect.

UK Home Office Immigration Liaison

Alert Logic, Belfast

Data Scientist (2018 - 2019)

Using advanced data mining and machine learning to analyse potential hacking and malware attacks on cloud infrastructure, improving coverage, value-assessment, and process control both internally and to customers.

Architected and built serverless TB-scale incident ETL and analysis platform, tracking both Research KPI’s, customer impacts for remediation, and overall operational monitoring.

Developed dynamic customer segmentation methodologies, and ML derived Content Signature validation/vectorisation techniques.

Generated internal software development, deployment, and scaling best practices in line with industry and academic state of art

Sensum Co, Belfast

Data Scientist (2016 - 2018)

Sensum Co is a leading emotional analytics start-up engaged with global brands in the assessment of real-time audience/participant engagement and emotionality.

Primary responsibilities in data analysis and investigation, as well as the design, development and testing of of micro services based cloud API/SDK architecture for the real time collation and analysis of mixed modality biometric and context data.

Secondary responsibilities in the architecture of secure data services architecture, PII management, data visualisation, ingress, ETL, as well as on-site, cloud, and mobile data analysis and connectivity architecture.

Incudes direct engagement with client facing analysis and investigation, as well as the encouragement and migration to industrial best practice in areas of data security, communications infrastructure and project management.

TOM Ltd, Belfast / Liverpool, UK

Associate / SpriteGuard Product Manager / Director of Research and Development (PT 2012 - 2016)

Traffic Observation and Management is a university spin-out company specialising in advanced wireless security systems for the public hotspot and payments services industries.

Contributed to ongoing development and refinement of the core SpriteGuard product structure and marketing, including stakeholder discussion and trade show representation.

Farset Labs, Belfast, UK

Founder/Director (PT 2011 - 2024)

Created Farset Labs in response to a demonstrated need for an independent, non-profit, charitable community of technology innovators, providing them a open space and shared resources to experiment, explore, and grow themselves, their projects, and relationships with local and global business.

Building Farset Labs as a hub for the technology community in Belfast and Northern Ireland as a whole, ensuring that the organisation remains agile and true to its core values.

Currently Farset Labs stands as a valued part of the technology, entrepreneurship, and STEM outreach communities, with collaborations with academia, government, and the private sector across Northern Ireland

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, Portsdown West, UK

Analyst (2013)

Coordinating research between Information Management and Naval Systems departments to synthesize a coordinated, data driven approach towards maritime autonomy and its potential applications.

Culminated in significant contribution to a Five-Eyes Autonomy Exchange project.

PC Engines GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland

IAESTE placed Embedded Engineer (2011)

Implementing and prototyping next generation embedded computing platforms and contributing to the Coreboot, SerialICE and FlashROM Open source Projects.

Technical Consultant (PT 2009-2010)

Application of technical knowledge and experience around Social Marketing and Customer Relationship Management to a leading Marketing and Advertising Firm. Responsibilities included strategic report generation for the creative director around the growth of social media marketing, relevant technologies such as Google Analytics for performance stracking and RFID / Smart Phone / Geo-location for targeted advertising. Directly contributed and presented at tender presentations.

Ericsson LMI, Athlone, ROI

Software Test Engineer (2008 - 2009)

Implementation of an Agile, Unit-tested and Continuously Integrated product release cycle to global 4G test infrastructure, reducing pre-deployment testing from three days to less than an hour, with fully automated reporting for a proprietary deployment application. I later moved on to server-side performance benchmarking for multi-gigabyte aggregation applications built on MySQL and Erlang. Participated in deployment planning for internal migration from SPARC to Solaris x86 porting, where my automated testing systems greatly improved the speed and confidence of this migration.

Education

University of Liverpool

PhD Researcher (2013 - 2016)

“An Investigation into Trust and Reputation Frameworks for Collaborative Teams of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles”

Working in the area of trust and security in telecommunications and autonomous networks for marine environments as part of a joint UK-FR PhD programme.

The programme was agreed at the 2010 Anglo-French Summit as one of the ten priorities in 2011 for the Anglo French Defence Research Group (AFDRG).

Included collaborations with:

Queen’s University Belfast

MEng Electronics and Software Engineering

This is a five-year Extended Engineering course. It has been established to provide an adequate supply of well-qualified engineers with an appropriate blend of engineering knowledge and skills in business practice and management.

Concentrations in High Performance Computing, and Digital Communications. Also sat as Student Representative througout my time at Queen’s, culminating in a chairmanship for my final year, as well as sitting on the IETs Younger Members Committee.

MEng Project: “High-Speed bit-loading algorithms for Dynamic Spectrum Management in ADSL”

Awards and Honours

Professional Associations

Notable Publications