Hardware, software and research computing in the Upper Valley.

R&D and test engineer in Lebanon, New Hampshire: medical-device verification, CFD software testing, cloud operations at a simulation-software company, and PhD research at WPI. Selected work below. References on request.

Research and simulation

• PhD research, WPI, NCSA Delta Droplet collisions at supercomputer scale 3D collisions at up to 96 million cells on about 24 A100 GPUs. A stretched grid I set up ran the same case 2.9× cheaper.
• Open source, 2026 Two changes merged into MFC Upstream in an open-source multiphase flow solver and 2025 Gordon Bell Prize finalist. One fixed a ten-month-old bug that corrupted grid coordinates.

Cloud and operations

• Simulation software, 2026 Cloud-bill audit A two-day review of the monthly cloud bill. The first savings were live two days after that.
• Simulation software, 2026 Production replica on every pull request Moved the customer platform onto AWS. The full test suite runs against a replica of production on every pull request.
• Simulation software, 2026 Idle shutdown, replayed before it shipped Replayed against two months of history before it touched production: it would have stopped nothing that was about to be used.

Software and test

• Ansys Fluent, Lebanon, NH Launch testing for a cloud feature Business-critical, on short notice: 12 test cases, and more than 20 defects reported and resolved to meet acceptance criteria.
• Ansys Fluent, Lebanon, NH Regression runs, twice as often Rewrote the team's daily regression workflow in Azure DevOps, doubling how often it ran.
• Own tool, 2026 PDF plans to a 3D walkthrough Turns a builder's PDF drawing set into a house you can walk through in any browser.
• Client, Lebanon, NH Deli website Built for a family-owned deli in Lebanon.

Hardware and test

• DEKA, medical devices Encoder test rig Arduino and Python reading a prototype linear encoder over SPI, logged in real time. Fixture upgraded to meet the subsystem tolerance.
• DEKA, medical devices Medical-device fluid path, root cause OpenFOAM root-cause analysis, with hyperelastic material models fitted to load tests I ran.
• Home lab, 2026 A 10.5-hour file-server hang, traced It answered ping while serving nothing. Traced to NFS stalling on large replies, fixed, and monitoring rebuilt to check that data comes back.
• Home lab, 2026 Storage grown in place, spare proven A ZFS pool grown from five disks to six in place, then a disk failure rehearsed to prove the hot spare takes over on its own.

What I take on

• Hardware Workstations and servers, home and office networks, backups proven by a restore, lab sensors and fixtures.
• Software Small-business websites, internal tools, data pipelines and dashboards.
• Infrastructure and cloud Bill audits, migrations, monitoring that checks the data path.
• Research computing Lab environments and storage, CFD with the verification to back it.
• AI tools Private systems for data that cannot leave the building; hands-on sessions on AI coding agents.

Rates

Engagement	Terms	Rate
Hourly	Remote or on site in the Upper Valley; one-hour minimum	$125 an hour
Day rate	On site with your team	$1,200 a day
Fixed-price project	Builds, websites, migrations, instrumentation	quoted per project
Fractional infrastructure	10 to 20 hours a month, business hours, named contact	$3,000 to $6,000 a month
Cloud-bill audit	Two days, written findings, savings implemented on approval; no fee if there are no savings	20% of first-year savings
Simulation study	Fixed price, scoped in a free one-week assessment	from $20,000

Written scope and price before work starts. Everything documented and handed over. Business hours only. Hardware and parts at cost, with receipts; New Hampshire charges no sales tax on services.

Getting in touch

davis@daviscole.com. I answer within a business day, and the first half-hour is free.