Hi, I'm Catherine

I love to create and communicate.

I’m a software engineer these days, but I’m also doing everything from design to marketing as I prepare to launch my own business. Agentic coding has transformed how fast I can turn my ideas into reality, and I’m learning something new every day.

I've written two books with O'Reilly Media: Software Engineering for Data Scientists, a practical guide to applying software engineering best practices to data science workflows, and Building Machine Learning Pipelines (co-authored with Hannes Hapke), which covers automating ML model life cycles with TensorFlow.

Previously, I consulted for early-stage startups on Generative AI: developing custom evaluation pipelines for LLM applications, building production services with FastAPI, and helping teams find product-market fit for AI features. Before that, I was a Principal Data Scientist at SAP Concur, specializing in document understanding and information extraction. My experience spanned the full ML lifecycle, from data pipelines and production APIs to deploying Transformer models.

I've spoken at PyCon US, PyData, Grace Hopper Conference, and other events on topics ranging from production ML systems to privacy-preserving machine learning to practical software engineering for data scientists.

Technology is my second career. Before I became a data scientist, I earned a PhD in geophysics and volcanology, and I worked as an exploration geologist in the oil industry. I’ve always been curious about the natural world around me and how it came to be that way. I love spending time in nature, whether that’s hiking, backpacking, skiing or rock climbing, so Seattle is an amazing place to live.

If you'd like to get in touch, the best way to reach me is on LinkedIn or Bluesky.