About Me

Curiosity is my north star and probably my defining trait. I deeply, deeply enjoy pushing the boundaries of my knowledge, because that usually means there is a new idea, skill or whole field waiting to be explored. Learning from experts is one of my favourite parts of the journey, and I have found that people who truly know their craft are usually generous with what they have learned.

That curiosity is what drew me to R&D. I get to research, plan, prepare, second-guess, document, build, test and then, after all that careful work, switch something on and discover that it does not quite work. That is R&D for you, and honestly, it is what gets me out of bed in the morning. Designs need tweaking, assumptions get challenged and very little survives first contact with reality. But when you finally wrangle something in the lab, take it into the field and watch it perform properly? Absolute bliss.

I hold myself to very high standards, particularly around safety, quality and documentation. Military aviation instilled those values in me from day one, along with the understanding that good records make complex work safer, repeatable and easier to improve. I also use Obsidian as a personal knowledge-management system, which has gradually become my own private Wikipedia. Thabopedia, perhaps. The name still needs work.

My ambition is to help create technology that does not exist yet. The kind that starts with an “I wonder if it is possible to…” and eventually becomes a real system that improves how people live, work or understand the world.

Outside work, I play the ukulele and sing songs by Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. The word “sing” is doing a great deal of heavy lifting there, but I enjoy it, and it gives the technical part of my brain permission to take some time off.

I am always happy to have a conversation, whether it is about a new opportunity, an unusual technical problem or simply something interesting worth exploring.