Welcome to my personal website!

I'm Dave Bulkin, a Principal Software Engineer at MathWorks, where I specialize in graphics and data visualization. I work on MATLAB's core graphics architecture and the design and implementation of language features that enhance chart and layout options. My goal is to make it easy for scientists and engineers to create powerful visualizations to help them understand and share insights about their data. I'm particularly interested in building new technologies to reduce the barriers to entry that make it difficult to share deep interactive graphics on the web. Some of the MATLAB features I've worked on include nexttile, swarmchart, bubblechart, and bubblecloud.

Before transitioning to software engineering, my worked in neurobiology. I explored how signals are intricately encoded in populations of neurons, employing approaches that examine many neurons simultaneously. I was fascinated by the rich and complex orchestration of the activity of neurons, and how they produced a signal not only through their activity but in their covariance.

During my graduate studies in Jenni Groh's lab at Duke, I investigated how the brain combines auditory and visual senses. As a postdoctoral associate in David Smith's lab at Cornell, I delved into understanding how hippocampal neurons encode events and resolve mnemonic interference. In Melissa Warden's lab, also at Cornell, I pioneered the development of new technologies integrating endoscopic calcium imaging with tissue clearing and genetic analyses, paving the way for innovative approaches in neuroscience.

While working on the development of new algorithms to align three-dimensional volumetric microscopy with time-varying physiological recordings, I became increasingly fascinated with the software and user interfaces I was developing. I loved a lot of things about my life as a sceintist, and I love a lot of things about my new life as an engineer. I'm most passionate about collaborating with brilliant colleagues to solve hard problems.

In my spare time, I engage in software projects aimed at making a positive impact. If you have a vision for a better world hindered by unmet software requirements, please reach out. My latest endeavor, ROIVert, was not only a great learning experience but also a ton of fun.

Thanks for visiting, and drop me a line if you have any questions.