Welcome to “A Conversation with the Team” – a series we are putting out so you can get to know our employees a little better. First up is Matthew Hanson Dumont, a computational hydrologist at KSL
𝗧𝗲𝗹𝗹 𝘂𝘀 𝗮 𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱?
I came to New Zealand in 2013 on a Fulbright scholarship to do my Masters in Geology at the University of Canterbury – quite different to groundwater! On a whim I did an intro to R course; from there I was hooked on scientific programming (now I much prefer Python over R). Before my transition to groundwater I worked in a range of scientific fields which gave me a wonderful sense of where groundwater science fits into the natural world. In 2017 I started working at Environment Canterbury; there Zeb Etheridge gave me a “short point and click exercise” to do. A full numerical model rebuild, countless lines of code, and a year and a half later, the Plan Change 7 decision-support groundwater model was finished. Zeb and I have been working together ever since.
My plan was to go back to the USA after my Master’s, but my (now) wife ruined all of my carefully laid out plans, and I’ve settled, quite happily, in New Zealand. Just waiting for Immigration NZ to process my citizenship application!
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗻?
Modelling modelling modelling. I’m having fun trying to pull as much information as possible from the data we’ve got. I also find contributions to open source repositories particularly rewarding.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿?
I’ve always got a bit more on than I’d planned. Juggling between getting this specific thing done right now and building a system to do this sort of thing more easily in the future is tricky.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁’𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿?
I love learning stuff at breakneck speed. I finally got the time to get back into the PEST and pyEMU workflow away from the support of a GUI. This year I also moved to daily driving Linux – I’m hooked!
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆?
We’re finally moving into a space where we’re leveraging the advances in computing and maths to not only provide the best estimate of what could happen, but also to quantify how wrong we could be.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸?
I love to spend my time outdoors. I’m a keen backcountry skier, mountain biker, tramper, and alpinist. I have a sometimes perverse joy travelling through inhospitable terrain; my best weekend last year was camped out in a tarp tent under Mount Enys, melting snow, and massaging my legs, sore from skiing with a pack. That said; a bike ride, a bit of pottering in the shed and garden followed by a bit of bodysurfing out at New Brighton is a pretty great way to spend a day too.
