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Led the research, design and development of a novel analytical process and product suite for reliably and quickly categorizing mineral assemblages in a set of rock core samples using a hyperspectral imaging laboratory for use in very remote and mostly offline sites.

Hyperspectral geology makes use of light-detecting instruments to identify minerals in rocks. This is (somewhat) analogous to how our eyes capture light and our brains analyze the signal to identify that a banana is ripe (yellow) and ready to eat as opposed to when it is under-ripe (green).

Developed a suite of products for mapping minerals in geological core samples using hyperspectral-imaging technologies. Managed/supported R&D team, grants and intellectual property portfolio. Led and actively participated in the development of numerous completed products integrating hardware and software. Co-developed new directions for the business strategy. Actively shaped and evolved the company culture.

The majority of geological mapping of rock core samples is done without any on-site analytical support, and often using spreadsheets. Given that the labour costs and value of results are extremely high to companies engaged in mapping of core, the opportunity to improve the reliability of the mapping and the speed of the process is tremendous. The value proposition was that we could provide reliable mapping and highly portable data for about a tenth of the cost of the geologist per meter of core and also in a quarter of the time. Note that the goal was not to replace the geologist, but to greatly facilitate their work by improving speed, reliability, ease-of-use, and ease of data sharing.

I joined the company as the third employee, working initially as a signal specialist. As I grew into the role of Director of Research and Development, and Production Capacity, I took on a wide variety of roles but continued to design, develop, and prototype the scientific software and processes responsible for analyzing the data and producing a final product.

Here are many of the specific tasks which I was responsible for throughout the process:

The imaging device was set up in a trailer as a mobile imaging laboratory. I worked closely with the parent company that designed and produced the imaging instruments (Photon Etc), and a variety of staff in-house, including marketing and communications, geologists, lab technicians, and on my team, engineers and software developers.

We used Trello to record bugs and feature requests – we tried to make it easy to understand and stay very responsive and receptive to input from all the other departments and staff functions. Our lab technicians and geologists provided us with the majority of live testing and invaluable feedback. Providing them with a clear roadmap of improvements and extensive training was essential to both a resilient work culture in the face of unexpected challenges and to the product success.

For the first version of the instrument, the data which came from the imaging system required numerous software post-processing steps. Many of these were due to the complication of capturing both (x,y) spatial information and spectral information at the same time. The relatively long scanning times were compensated for by placing a larger number of samples in the field of view. However, the unintended consequences were that the lab had to be considerably larger, require more electricity (for all the lights), and cost more to produce the labs.

A second version was designed and prototyped using a line-scanner and motorized conveyor (shown below). There was not sufficient time to fully develop the new system before Photonic Knowledge ran out of cash, however, the early results of the system in terms of analytical accuracy and precision, data production speed, low complexity, and system cost were extremely promising.