Profile Details
Mr. Bradley Sappington is the co-chair of the engineering steering committee, which is tasked with identifying and responding to issues of strategic importance for engineering work that is conducted at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). He and his co-chair provide feedback about engineering procedures, processes, and practices to the director and STScI leadership.
As a senior software engineer at the institute, he contributes to projects for the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. In this role, he co-designed and is supporting the implementation of the reference file pipeline that will support data obtained by the Roman Space Telescope’s Wide Field Instrument (WFI). He also supports the JWST Quicklook Application, a database-driven web app and automation framework that teams use to monitor the health, stability, and performance of the telescope’s instruments. His contributions included designing a database sustainability enhancement and updating the accessibility of its development framework. He has also applied best practices to existing repositories, including converting programs, notebooks, and algorithms for JWST’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) from a commissioning analysis procedure to a sustainable, accessible long-term repository. He actively maintains the Space Telescope Point Spread Function (STPSF) repository.
He leads a community software initiative in the instruments division, where he works to establish and document best practices in software development, and helps ensure they are actively used. He also serves as a technical mentor to engineers across the institute.
From 2007 to 2022, Mr. Sappington served as a software engineer at AmTote International in Hunt Valley. While there, he updated and managed a back-end system, updated various web services and gateway protocols, and designed and implemented an anti-money laundering software security system. He also innovated and implemented a new internal error reporting technique to significantly alter how issues were identified and triaged throughout the company. In 2007, he served as a community development volunteer at Montaña Verde in Rivas, Costa Rica, where he managed and maintained an environmental hostel, and led the development of its business plan. In 2006, he was a terminal repair technician at AmTote International, where he serviced hardware for various ticketing machines.
Education:
BA in Computer Science, Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland