Programmer

Christopher grew up in Rockville Centre, New York. He attended Brown University where he earned a BS with honors in Chemical Physics. He worked with Prof. Shouheng Sun on electrochemical CO2 reduction and the structural dynamics of nanoparticles. After working at Brookhaven National Laboratory as a summer intern, he attended the University of South Carolina, working with Prof. Xiao-Dong Zhou on the atomic structure of solid oxide fuel cell components and earned a masters in Chemical Engineering. He joined the Billinge Group in 2016 and is currently working on analysis pipelines, data processing techniques and simulation software for PDF. Christopher is also a core developer for the conda-forge packaging ecosystem, president of Columbia qSTEM and sits on the Columbia Foundations for Research Computing advisory board. In his free time Christopher develops for open source projects, plays woodwind instruments, enjoys good scotch and works out by playing squash.

Education & Employment


Lab 49

Associate

New York, NY, 2019 - present

Columbia University

PhD in Materials Science

New York, NY, 2017 - 2019
  • Advisor: Simon J.L. Billinge
  • Thesis: Towards Real Time Characterization of Grain Growth From the Melt

Columbia University

Graduate Research Assistant

New York, NY, 2016 - 2019

Columbia University

MS in Materials Science

New York, NY, 2016 - 2017

National Synchrotron Light Source-II, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Visiting Student

Upton, NY, 2015 - 2015
  • pyIID: The Python Infinite Improbability Drive, Monte Carlo Searches of X-ray Scattering Derived Structures

National Synchrotron Light Source-II, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Software Engineer, SURP

Upton, NY, 2014 - 2014
  • pyXPD: prototype controls software for the x-ray powder diffraction beamline, 28-ID

University of Sourth Carolina

MS in Chemical Engineering

Columbia, SC, 2014 - 2014
  • Advisor: Xiao-Dong Zhou
  • Thesis: Solving Atomic Structures using Statistical Mechanical Searches on X-ray Scattering Derived Potential Energy Surfaces
  • Website: https://github.com/CJ-Wright/Masters_Thesis/raw/master/thesis.pdf

Brown University

ScB in Chemical Physics with Honors

Providence, RI, 2010 - 2014
  • Advisor: Shouheng Sun
  • Thesis: Solving Atomic Structures using Statistical Mechanical Searches on X-ray Scattering Derived Potential Energy Surfaces

National Synchrotron Light Source-II, Brookhaven National Laboratory

Science Undergraduate Laboratory Intern

Upton, NY, 2012 - 2012
  • Structural refinement of CdSe Nanoparticles

University of South Carolina

Research Experience for Undergraduates Researcher

Columbia, SC, 2011 - 2011
  • Electrochemical Reduction of CO2 via Copper Nanoparticles

Service

QSTEM Outreach Coordinator and Treasurer/Co-President

12 2016

Enhanced Learning Experience lecturer: University of South Carolina

12 2016

Electrochemical Society Student Chapter President: University of South Carolina

12 2015

Science Fair Judge at Dutch Fork High School

12 2015

Brown University Chemistry Department Undergraduate Group Co-Chair

12 2014

Renewable Energy Presenter and Facility Tour Guide at the NSLS "Science Sunday" laboratory open house at Brookhaven National Laboratory

12 2014

Brown-Yale CCI Presenter at the Brown Science Conference at the Vartan Gregorian Elementary School

12 2013

Master of Ceremonies and Organizer Brown University "Chemistry: Believe it or Not" public chemistry demonstration

12 2013

Chemistry STEM Panelist Brown University A Day on College Hill

12 2013

Presenter Brown University "Night of Chemistry" public chemistry demonstration

12 2012

Publications

  1. Christopher ``CJ" Wright, Songsheng Tao, and Simon J. L. Billinge. "SHED: Streaming Heterogeneous Event Data Tracking with Provenance". J. Open Source Software . Tbd 2021 download doi
  2. Chia-Hao Liu, Christopher J. Wright, Ran Gu, Sasaank Bandi, Allison Wustrow, Paul K. Todd, Daniel O'Nolan, Michelle L. Beauvais, James R. Neilson, Peter J. Chupas, Karena W. Chapman, and Simon J. L. Billinge. "Validation of non-negative matrix factorization for rapid assessment of large sets of atomic pair-distribution function (PDF) data". J. Appl. Crystallogr. . 54 p. 768-775 May 2021 download doi
  3. Christopher J. ``CJ" Wright, Eric Dooryhee, Lucas A. Pressley, W. Adam Phelan, Peter G. Khalifah, and Simon J. L. Billinge. "Towards In Situ Synchrotron Mapping of Crystal Selection Processes During Crystal Growth". Chem. Mater. . 33 p. 3359-3367 Apr 2021 download doi
  4. Line Pouchard, Pavol Juhas, Gilchan Park, Huub Van Dam, Stuart I. Campbell, Eli Stavitski, Simon Billinge, and Christopher J. Wright. "Provenance infrastructure for multi-modal x-ray experiments and reproducible analysis". Handbook on Big Data and Machine Learning in the Physical Sciences. p. 307-331 Singapore Mar 2020 download doi
  5. Christopher J. Wright. "Towards Real Time Characterization of Grain Growth from the Melt". . Nov 2019

Memberships


Electrochemical Society

Member, 2011 - 2016

American Physical Society

Member, 2016 - present

American Chemical Society

Member, 2009 - present

Skills


Programming Languages

  • Expert: Python
  • Intermediate: xonsh, Lua, BASH

Software

  • Intermediate: git

Markup Languages

  • Expert: LaTeX, markdown

Specialized Software

  • Expert: Linux, OS/2, NumPy, SciPy, MatPlotLib
  • Intermediate: Mathematica, MATLAB, MongoDB
  • Expert: Fit2D, pyFAI
  • Intermediate: SPEC, TinyDB

Experiments

  • Expert: X-ray Powder Diffraction, X-ray Total Scattering, Atomic Pair Distribution Function Analysis, In-situ/In-operando X-ray Scattering
  • Intermediate: Electrochemistry, Electron Microscopy