Hi, I’m Jamie Saxon.

I work on spatial problems, software / hardware integration, and engineering for large datasets.

I am currently a software engineer at Planet, working to derive actionable insights from satellite imagery.

I was originally trained as an experimental particle physicist. I started working on the ATLAS experiment as a high school student in 2003, and spent many years building electronics, writing firmware, and commissioning large data systems. As a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, I made noteworthy contributions to the discovery and first measurements of the Higgs boson.

I then spent eight years as a researcher the University of Chicago. As my interests shifted from physics towards geospatial and urban problems, I published work on gerrymandering, the dynamics of human mobility across neighborhoods, access to resources like healthcare, parks, and performant Internet, and statistical inference from convenience samples. Along the way, I worked on firmware development, learned practical computer vision, and taught statistics to graduate students in public policy.

Most-recently, I was at Mapbox, where I worked to distill traffic conditions from raw location telemetry. I made major contributions to the accuracy of traffic speeds and the classification of device modality (walking vs driving). I also delivered new products for identifying dangerous traffic conditions.

I have two sons, and sometimes aspire to make light-based art.