Rodger Duffett

Rodger joined CSAG in 2010 to take on the role of High Performance Computing Specialist and Systems Administrator for the centre. He has extensive experience in these fields having worked in HPC, data management and systems administraion since 1990. He  completed a B.Sc. [Physics] from the University of Cape Town in 1988 and an M.Sc. [Radiation Oncology] in 1999. The work that CSAG engages with provides many opportunities for Rodger to exercise his skills including specialist operating system support, technical knowledge of cluster computing, a good understanding of big data management from hardware to analysis. Hi is invaluable in his role in support of scientists in programming, data management and analysis. He is competent in Python and has worked on previous projects with Perl, C, Javascript and using various database systems including SQL and NoSQL based models. He has made significant contributions to numerous CSAG projects especially those that include technical elements. These have included development of a UAV based sounding system, a weather station network and an online tool for estimating rain-water harvesting from rooftops and small catchments. Rodger works from an off-grid farm office and has a keen interest in renewable energy. He has contributed to the Wind Atlas for Southern Africa project working on post-processing and data-analytics of model output. He has worked on the resource modelling, design and installation for numerous off-grid solar projects including collaboration on design for an off-grid olive oil extraction plant with 500kWp solar capacity and 1.2MWh storage.