Hi, I'm Scott. I'm currently a quantitative developer at Quantlab, a high-frequency trading firm. I used to be an assistant research scientist in the Computer Science & Engineering Department at Texas A&M University, where I worked with Dr. Tim Davis on graph analytics problems. I have a background in chemical engineering, and I worked as an Optimization Engineer at Shell for two years. I’m also a licensed Professional Engineer.

My professional interests include high-performance computing, software engineering, and scientific software development and concepts, especially when applied to large-scale data science and decision-making. In my free time, I enjoy building custom keyboards and LEGO.

Q. How do you pronounce your last name?

A. koh-LOH-jay. It's Polish for Wheelwright. In proper Polish, it's spelled Kołodziej, and pronounced koh-WOH-jay. If you pronounce the dz like a j, it's not as big of a stretch as it first looks.

Education

2015 - 2019

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science

Advised by Dr. Timothy Davis

Created and implemented novel hybrid algorithmic and heuristic approaches for computing high quality edge cuts and vertex separators in graphs using continuous bilinear and mixed-integer linear optimization formulations.

2010 - 2012

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Master of Science in Chemical Engineering

Advised by Dr. Ignacio Grossmann

Developed a method for solving time-dependent blending problems common to the process industries 100x faster than previous methods.

2006 - 2010

Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas

Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering, magna cum laude

Mastered the fundamentals of chemical engineering. Sought out research projects in numerical optimization, carbon capture, and biofuels.

Professional Experience

2020 - Present

2019 - 2020

2012 - 2014

Shell, Houston, TX

Optimization Engineer in the Process Automation, Control, and Optimization (PACO) group. 

While at Shell, I worked in dynamic process simulation. We answered questions and troubleshot problems that couldn't be addressed using steady-state simulation. I contributed to projects involving process safety, energy efficiency, and multi-phase flow.

I also managed reliability, availability, and maintainability (RAM) studies. We used Monte Carlo simulations to estimate the expected downtime of projects, as well as to help inform project decision-making.

Projects

2015 - 2019

Optimization Approaches to Graph Partitioning

For my doctoral research, I developed a highly efficient graph partitioning library using continuous and discrete optimization techniques.

Parallel processing of graphs and finite element meshes, sparse matrix orderings, and VLSI chip layouts all use graph partitioning in some form or another.

I gained a lot of experience using static analysis tools, code coverage, continuous integration, and Git to better engineer the codebase, which was a mix of C and C++ with a MATLAB interface.

Mongoose is available on GitHub.

Davis, T.A., Hager, W.W., Kolodziej, S.P., Yeralan, S.N., Mongoose, A Graph Coarsening and Partitioning Library, ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software.

2015 - Present

SuiteSparse Matrix Collection Web Application

This project started as a team project for the Software Engineering course. We built a Ruby on Rails makeover of a previous website that allows you to browse Dr. Tim Davis's SuiteSparse Matrix Collection, a collection of almost 3000 sparse matrices cataloged by size, sparsity, and other properties.

You can browse the source code on GitHub. It's currently deployed in production at sparse.tamu.edu and receives more than 10,000 unique visitors per month.

Kolodziej, S.P., Aznaveh, M., Bullock, M., David, J., Davis, T.A., Henderson, M., Hu, Y., and Sandstrom, R., The SuiteSparse Matrix Collection Website Interface, Journal of Open Source Software 4 (35), 1244, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01244.

2011 - 2012

Multiperiod Blending Problem

As a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, I developed a better method to solve a class of time-dependent blending optimization problems common to the process industries. Applying this approach led to more than 100x improvement in performance.

Kolodziej, S.P., Castro, P.M., and Grossmann, I.E., Global Optimization of Bilinear Programs with a Multiparametric Disaggregation Technique, Journal of Global Optimization 57 (4), 1039-1063 (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10898-012-0022-1.

Kolodziej, S.P., Grossmann, I.E., Furman, K.C., and Sawaya, N.W., A Discretization-Based Approach for the Optimization of the Multiperiod Blend Scheduling Problem, Computers & Chemical Engineering 53, 122-142 (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2013.01.016.

Leadership

2015 - 2016

CSEGSA President

As President of the Computer Science and Engineering Graduate Student Association, I worked with my team of officers to improve the culture of the Computer Science and Engineering department.

We launched a new biweekly social in the department and invited the faculty to it, and it's been so successful that the department agreed to double the CSEGSA budget.

We also conducted a graduate student climate survey, created a volunteer pool to help out in the department, launched a new website, and held a town hall to better understand the concerns of the graduate student body.

2014

Shell PACO Group HSSE Focal Point

During my time at Shell, I was the Health, Safety, Security, and Environment (HSSE) Focal Point for my group of ~50 engineers. I coordinated HSSE-related programs, such as our HSSE incident reporting database.

2010 - 2012

Carnegie Mellon University AIChE Graduate Advisor

As a graduate student at CMU, I joined the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) student chapter there. I encouraged their leadership team to have more industry speakers, and helped them procure industry contacts from the faculty.

Recent Awards and Honors

September 2019

June 2016

GPSC Summer Travel Grant, Graduate & Professional Student Council, Texas A&M University

Received grant to attend the Neuromorphic Computing Workshop at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

January 2016

Department Travel Grant, Computer Science & Engineering Department, Texas A&M University

Applied for and received $1,000 grant to attend the SIAM Parallel Processing 2016 conference in Paris, France.

March 2016

Graduate Leadership Excellence Award, Computer Science & Engineering Department, Texas A&M University

Awarded for excellence in leading the Computer Science & Engineering Graduate Student Association (CSEGSA) and introducing biweekly graduate student socials.

May 2014