grasping the bytes: thomas baudel


Researcher and practitioner in interactive information systems, I create innovative software, with insistence on actual productive use. My work relies on a strong technical expertise, proven from having designed and contributed to several ambitious and successful products. I strive to embed context in the design process, from direct relations with customers to academic research, and coordinate pluri-disciplinary and motivated teams to provide for game-changing products. (fr)


topics

Links

> About me (fr)

professional experience

Jul 2009 - present Research Director & Master Inventor IBM France R&D Lab, Gentilly
Design, manage and implement collaborative innovation projects involving the France Lab teams, partners, customers and academics. In this context, I conducted IBM involvement in the Optimod Lyon project, including evaluating traffic prediction tools and designing a novel, urban-scale, vehicle round optimization service. Major side activities include:

Jul 2000 - Jul 2009 Principal Scientist ILOG (bought by IBM in 2009), Gentilly
Design, manage and implement innovation projects involving the France Lab teams, partners, customers and academics. Contribution (including design and implementation of advanced features) to the products: ILOG Discovery, ILOG JRules, ILOG Views. Coordinated participation to public-funded projects: OADymPPaC, INDIGO, VisMaster.

Sep 1998 - Jul 2000 Software Developer ILOG, Gentilly
Contribute to the development of Views C++ GUI toolkit library. In charge of the development of the "Business Graphic Objects" module, took over a 280kloc module, removed 70kloc and added 20kloc for a net productivity of -25kloc per year. Left 0 open bugs to my successor, with only 1 bug discovered and fixed in 2005.

Mar 1995 - Sep 1998 Researcher & Developer Alias|Wavefront (now Autodesk), Toronto, Canada then Paris
Contributed to the development of Maya 1.0 (navigation UI design, implementation and design of polygonal modeling UI), StudioPaint 3.0 (gesture/paint algorithms), research work (including publications and patents) on misc. interaction techniques: two-handed input, new input devices, mark-based interaction, 3D interaction...

1990-1994 founder and CEO le point sur le i, Paris (part-time)
Consulting and business management software development, customers included Garonor customer department, Hair-dressers and Language schools.

1987-1989 tech support ACI, Paris (part-time)

1982-1983 assistant & internal tech support CIAD, Paris (part-time)

competences

Software design and development: Complex, multi-language, product development & maintenance, with a focus on sophisticated UI programming. Contributed in various capacities to 4 products of over 4Mloc in C++ and Java and a dozen smaller products. Design and development lead of 3 intermediate-sized products (<400kloc) totalling more than 2000 users.

R&D project management & coordination: Plan and fund (internally or with external or public funds) mid-sized (4-8 person.year) innovative projects. Assemble and manage small teams from heterogenous origins (internal developers, customers, academic partners, students...) to carry the project over 6 months to 3 years; integrate the results in existing product lines.

User interface design and programming: Many references of novel user interfaces design, from experimental designs to product implementations involving user participation, including interaction with customers.

System administration & web development: Administrate servers (DNS, SMTP, IMAP, HTTP, LDAP, file server, source code control, databases and application servers...) for small groups on various unices since 1990. Design and continuous administration of 5 (simple) websites since 1993. Amateur proficiency in modern front-end and back-end tools such as JQuery, Angular, J2EE & python/Django.

Research: Over 20 scientific publications, 3300 citations, h-index 15. Participation to various academic & reviewing boards (see below). Involving a strong research component in my work is a mean to ensure the technological consistency and relevance of the products. It's also a great mean to provide for visibility and recruiting abilities.

Patent law, intellectual property: 11 patents granted, 8 patents pending. France Lab Invention Development Team lead (~50 inventors).

Optimization: Basic competences in Operations Research and Constraints Programming (ILOG CPLEX and OPL).

research community responsibilities

teaching

education

misc

Languages: French: native. English: main work language. German, Dutch, Spanish, Ancient Greek: basic conversation & notions.

Married, 2 children