Finlay Thompson

CEO, Dragonfly Data Science
Dragonfly Data Science is an Aotearoa based research organisation contributing to a wide range of scientific projects, including in marine science, natural language processing, and bioinformatics. We believe that scientific research should be useful, and seek out projects that have strong links to the wider community.

Data scientist, data engineer, mathematician
Finlay has extensive experience as a database and software developer. He leads the technical direction of Dragonfly's work, with a strong focus on open source technologies. He enjoys the challenge of making analytical and statistical solutions operational. Finlay is experienced in Bayesian analysis and has carried out statistical modelling on diverse projects such as estimating the bycatch of marine mammals in New Zealand fisheries, and the number of leaky homes in the country.

Reproducible research advocate
Finlay believes that automated approaches can massively increase the quality, reproducibility, and productivity of analytical systems. At Dragonfly, Finlay has contributed to the standardising reproducible practices that are used across all projects.

Finlay researched four-dimensional algebra and geometry for his PhD in mathematics at SISSA, Italy. He completed post-docs at CIMAT in Mexico and Victoria University of Wellington, then worked in Wellington's IT industry before joining Dragonfly in 2008.