Open-source contribution
OpenMC
Contributions to OpenMC, the community-developed Monte Carlo neutron and photon transport code that underpins much of the world's open nuclear simulation work.
- Role
- Open-source contributor
- Period
- 2024 — present
The problem
Monte Carlo transport codes are long-lived community projects with a scientific user base that is not a web audience. Changes land slowly, review is exacting, and the documentation assumes knowledge that new contributors do not have.
The approach
My contributions to OpenMC focused on the parts of the codebase where a user's experience depends on details that are easy to get wrong: build configuration, error messages that point at the actual cause, and the packaging and CI paths that decide whether a change can be released.
Working inside the project rather than around it is the point. A change has to survive review by the people who maintain the code, which is a stricter standard than shipping a feature on a platform you own — and the standard is the reason the contribution is worth anything.
Engineering highlights
Upstream, not forked
Every change was aimed at the mainline project. A fork is a workaround; an upstreamed fix helps everyone who runs the code.
Errors as documentation
The most valuable contributions were often better failure messages — a transport code that explains what went wrong is as useful as one that runs.
At a glance
- Project
- Community Monte Carlo transport
- Role
- Contributor
Stack
- C
- C++
- Python
- CMake
- GitHub Actions