Dr. Greg Wilson

• Professional software developer for over 40 years
• Fellow of the Python Software Foundation
• Co-founder and first Executive Director of Software Carpentry.
• Recipient of ACM SIGSOFT’s “Influential Educator of the Year” Award.
• Co-founder of It Will Never Work in Theory and The Architecture of Open Source Applications
• Author or editor of fourteen books on programming, one on teaching, and two for children.

Employment

2025/10–present: Independent consulting and teaching.

2024/04–2025/10: Engineering Manager, Open Source Libraries, Plotly. Managed in-house developers; coordinated open source community strategy.

2021/09–2024/03: Senior Engineering Manager, Deep Genomics. Recruited and managed developers; built back-end software in Python; developed and delivered in-house training

2021/02–2021/08: Head of Education, Metabase. Designed and delivered training material; managed content development team.

2018/09–2021/01: Data Scientist and Professional Educator, RStudio PBC. Created and ran instructor certification program and student intern program.

2017/08–2018/05: Content Developer and Instructor Trainer, DataCamp. Created courses on Git and the Unix shell; recruited and trained freelance instructors.

2017/01–2017/07: Principal Consultant, Rangle.io. Revised training materials on Angular and React; coached company staff on training techniques.

2015/08–2016/12: Director of Instructor Training, Software Carpentry Foundation. Developed and delivered the foundation’s train-the-trainers course.

2012/01–2015/07: Executive Director, Software Carpentry Foundation. Developed curriculum; trained instructors; negotiated external partnerships; led fundraising; led development of workflow tools.

2011/07-2011/12: Software Engineer, Side Effects Software Inc. Co-developed online store for the company’s flagship product using Django and Selenium.

2010/05–2011/06: Project lead, Software Carpentry. Developed and delivered workshops on research computing skills; recruited and trained volunteer instructors; oversaw program assessment and fundraising.

2007/01–2010/04: Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Toronto. Designed Professional Master’s program; taught courses; supervised theses.

1982–2006: Software developer and consultant for academic research centers, US national labs, and firms ranging from early-stage startups to IBM.

Education

• 1993: PhD in Computer Science, University of Edinburgh.
• 1986: MSc in Artificial Intelligence, University of Edinburgh.
• 1984: BSc in Mathematics and Engineering (First Class Honors), Queen’s University.

Awards

• ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator of the Year Award, 2020.
• ComputerWorld Canada’s “IT Educator of the Year” award, 2010.
• Co-winner of 2008 Jolt Award for Best General Book (for Beautiful Code).
• Co-winner of Howe Prize (best thesis in Artificial Intelligence), University of Edinburgh, 1986.
• Commonwealth Scholarship, 1985–86.
• University Medal, Queen’s University, 1984 (top student in graduating class).

Miscellaneous

• Co-founder and editor of It Will Never Work in Theory.
• Founder and co-editor of The Architecture of Open Source Applications.
• Author of two children’s books (Bottle of Light, 2008 and Three Sensible Adventures, 1999).
• Co-organized a summit meeting of free-range computing education groups in 2015.
• Python Software Foundation, 2010-present.
• Stencila Advisory Board, 2017-19.
• Toronto Public Library Innovation Council, 2017-18.
• Advisory Board, Ladies Learning Code, 2012-2014.
• Contributing editor with Doctor Dobb’s Journal, 2001-10.
• Mentor for Google’s Summer of Code, 2005-2015.
• Ultimate frisbee, 1995-2003 (Toronto “C” Division championship team 2002).
• Competitor in World Computer Chess Championship, 1989.

Technical Books

• Greg Wilson: Software Design by Example. Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2022.
• Damien Irving, Kate Hertweck, Luke Johnston, Joel Ostblom, Charlotte Wickham, and Greg Wilson: Research Software Engineering with Python. Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2021.
• Maya Gans, Toby Hodges, and Greg Wilson: JavaScript for Data Science. Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2020.
• Greg Wilson: Teaching Tech Together. Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2019.
• Amy Brown and Greg Wilson (eds.): The Architecture of Open Source Applications (two volumes), Lulu.com, 2011 and 2012.
• Andy Oram and Greg Wilson (eds.): Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It. O’Reilly, 2010.
• Jennifer Campbell, Paul Gries, Jason Montojo, and Greg Wilson: Practical Programming. Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2009.
• Andy Oram and Greg Wilson (eds.): Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think. O’Reilly and Associates, 2007; winner of 2008 Jolt Award for Best General Book.
• Greg Wilson: Data Crunching: Solve Everyday Problems Using Java, Python, and More. Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2005.
• Gregory V. Wilson and Paul Lu (eds.): Parallel Programming Using C++. MIT Press, 1996.
• Gregory V. Wilson: Practical Parallel Programming. MIT Press, 1995.

Selected Papers and Articles

• Jess Haberman and Greg Wilson: Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Technical Book. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2023.
• Greg Wilson: Twelve Quick Tips for Software Design. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2022.
• Danielle Smalls and Greg Wilson: Ten Quick Tips for Staying Safe Online. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2021.
• Sarah Lin, Ibraheem Ali, and Greg Wilson: Ten Quick Tips for Making Things Findable. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2020.
• Paul Denny, Brett A. Becker, Michelle Craig, Greg Wilson, and Piotr Banaszkiewicz: Research This! Questions that Computing Educators Most Want Computing Education Researchers to Answer. ICER 2019.
• Dan Sholler, Igor Steinmacher, Denae Ford, Mara Averick, Mike Hoye, and Greg Wilson: Ten Simple Rules for Helping Newcomers Become Contributors to Open Projects. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2019.
• Greg Wilson: Ten Quick Tips for Delivering Programming Lessons. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2019.
• Greg Wilson: Ten Quick Tips for Creating an Effective Lesson. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2019.
• Neil Brown and Greg Wilson: Ten Quick Tips for Teaching Programming. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2018.
• Gabriel Devenyi, Rémi Emonet, Rayna Harris, Kate Hertweck, Damien Irving, Ian Milligan, and Greg Wilson: Ten Simple Rules for Collaborative Lesson Development. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2018.
• Daniel Almeida, Gail Murphy, Greg Wilson, and Mike Hoye: Do Software Developers Understand Open Source Licenses? ICSE‘17, 2017.
• Morgan Taschuk and Greg Wilson: Ten Simple Rules for Making Research Software More Robust. PLoS Comp. Bio., 2017.
• Greg Wilson, Jennifer Bryan, Karen Cranston, Justin Kitzes, Lex Nederbragt, and Tracy K. Teal: Good Enough Practices in Scientific Computing. PLoS Comp.Bio., 2017.
• Greg Wilson: Software Carpentry: Lessons Learned. F1000 Research, 2016.
• Greg Wilson, Dhavide Aruliah, Titus Brown, Neil Chue Hong, Matt Davis, Richard Guy, Steven Haddock, Kathryn Huff, Ian Mitchell, Mark Plumbley, Ben Waugh, Ethan White, and Paul Wilson: Best Practices for Scientific Computing. PLoS Biology, 2014.