I’m a software developer and computer science student based in Vancouver, Canada. Programming has been my main productive hobby since early 2017, and I’ve been working on personal projects and participating in community events like hackathons, programming competitions, and game jams since then. I also have professional experience through an eight-month co-op as a bioinformatics software developer. Building software and solving interesting design problems activates the happy parts of my brain. I especially enjoy creating things that are useful for people.
Currently, I am a computer science undergraduate student in the BCS program at UBC. Prior to this, I was an applied mathematics graduate student with the Layton lab at the University of Waterloo, where I studied kidneys using mathematical modelling.
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Sep 2020–Sep 2023
University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Canada
Graduate teaching assistant
- Led tutorials for 100 to 300-level mathematics courses
- Developed and delivered short lectures and provided individualized student support
- Collaborated with instructors to develop marking schemes for assignments and exams
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May 2018–Dec 2018
BC Cancer: Shah Lab,
Vancouver, Canada
Bioinformatics software developer (co-op position)
- Independently created a central piece of the lab’s software infrastructure (see saltant below)
- Developed and maintained two large genomic databases with a small team
- Performed genomic data analysis using Python and R
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May 2017–Aug 2017
Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, Canada
Copy editor (work-study position)
- Edited the open-source MATLAB textbook Physical Modeling in MATLAB
- Optimized LaTeX source code for readability and robustness
- Programming languages: Python, TypeScript, C++, Java, R, Lua
- Web development (backend): Django, Django REST framework, Nginx, SQL
- Web development (frontend): React, D3.js
- Development tools: Docker, Ansible
- Cloud & CI/CD: AWS (EC2, S3, Route 53); Azure (Virtual Machines, Blob Storage); Travis CI, AppVeyor, Codecov, Rollbar
- Mathematics & data science: Python libraries (NumPy, pandas, SciPy, Matplotlib, seaborn); R libraries (tidyverse); MATLAB, Maple
Personal projects
- 2025: Super Mario 64 Route Optimizer – Super Mario 64 route optimizer
- 2022: hand-frequency-scraper – interactive visualizations for poker hand data
- 2021: dbd-reminders – email notifier for Dead by Daylight perks and codes
- 2021: kidney-arterial-tree – interactive visualization for kidney arterial networks
- 2021: poker-plots – interactive visualizations for poker game data
- 2019: AvalonBot – The Resistance: Avalon Discord bot
- 2019: avalon-vote-tracker – The Resistance: Avalon vote tracking app
- 2019: fooskill – foosball league and leaderboard app
- 2019: slats – Spotify library importer
- 2018: Mario 64 Rivals – Super Mario 64 speedrun leaderboards site
- 2018: meowder – dating site for cats
- 2018: rpi-led-lightshow – Raspberry Pi LED light show
- 2018: twitch-game-notify – desktop Twitch notifier
- 2017: jrnl – personal journal manager
- 2017: mattwiens.ca – this webpage
- 2017: transfat – utility to make music files compatible with my car stereo
Hackathons and game jams
- 2025: Contextify (24 hours) – Chrome extension for contextual word definitions
- 2020: Avise (24 hours) – substance monitoring app
- 2019: Picify (24 hours) – playlist creation app using vibes of uploaded images
- 2019: space_MAGE_ (48 hours) – resource management/side-scrolling shooter hybrid game
- 2018: CommonRank (24 hours) – custom leaderboard creation app
- 2018: mindr (24 hours) – automated nanny app using ML emotion detection
Coding competitions
- 2017–2019: coding-competitions – collection of competition results and code
Work projects
- 2018: Colossus – genomics cell sample database
- 2018: jira-ticket-migrate – Jira ticket migration tool
- 2018: saltant – distributed task runner and manager
- 2018: saltant-cli – saltant CLI
- 2018: saltant-py – saltant SDK for Python
- 2018: shahwebsite – website for Dr. Sohrab Shah’s research group at BC Cancer
- 2018: Tantalus – genomic file database and transfer manager
- 2017: Physical Modeling in MATLAB – open-source MATLAB textbook
Big open source projects (as contributor)
- 2018: Toil – pipeline management system
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Sep 2025–present
The University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, Canada
- Bachelor of Computer Science
- GPA 98.7/100
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Sep 2020–Sep 2023
University of Waterloo,
Waterloo, Canada
- Master of Mathematics in Applied Mathematics (partial completion)
- NSERC CGS M scholarship ($17,500 over one year)
- Recipient of 4 scholarships and awards totalling $34,500
- GPA 90.67/100
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Sep 2015–Aug 2020
Simon Fraser University,
Burnaby, Canada
- Bachelor of Science (Honours First Class with Distinction)
- Honours in Applied Mathematics, Minor in Physics
- Undergraduate Dean’s Medal, Faculty of Science
- Recipient of 18 scholarships and awards totalling $23,935
- GPA 4.21/4.33
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Clonal Decomposition and DNA Replication States Defined by
Scaled Single-Cell Genome Sequencing
- Emma Laks, Andrew McPherson, Hans Zahn, … , Matt Wiens, et al.
- Cell, 2019.
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Dissociation of solid tumour tissues with cold active
protease for single-cell RNA-seq minimizes conserved
collagenase associated stress responses
- Ciara H. O’Flanagan, Kieran R. Campbell, Allen W. Zhang, … , Matt Wiens, et al.
- Genome Biology, 2019.
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Probabilistic cell-type assignment of single-cell RNA-seq
for tumor microenvironment profiling
- Allen W.Zhang, Ciara O’Flanagan, Elizabeth A. Chavez, … , Matt Wiens, et al.
- Nature Methods, 2019.