Rolf Carlson

Experience

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  Private Fishing Boat - Richard Isett

  Jun 1984 - Aug 1984

  Salmon Fisherman

  We successfully harvested sockeye salmon from Southeast Alaska. I helped manage and maintain gillnetting equipment to ensure regulatory compliance and optimal catch.

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  BDM Corporation

  Jun 1985 - Aug 1985

  Summer Intern

  We collected electromagnetic pulse data for signal processing to determine risks to computer hardware at electric power sites across the U.S. and Canada. At the time, the electric power industry was transitioning to digital control, and there was concern that an electromagnetic pulse could damage the digital circuits. We calibrated the EMP collection system and measured EMP at three sites over two months.

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  St. Olaf College

  Jan 1986 - Jan 1986

  Computer Maintenance

  Contributed to the smooth operation of the campus VAX server by assisting in its backup and maintenance, ensuring data integrity and system reliability.

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  St. Olaf College

  Jan 1987 - Jan 1987

  Weight Room Monitor

  I supervised the weight room at St. Olaf for several hours daily, maintaining a 0% injury rate for campus gym users and ensuring a safe and secure environment for all athletes and students.

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  Mikohn Gaming Corporation

  Jun 1988 - Jul 1988

  Computer Technician

  Successfully built cables for slot machines and lighting systems in the gaming industry for Mikohn, Inc.

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  Clemson University College of Science

  Aug 1988 - May 1989

  Assisted in developing and implementing an underwater acoustics model for Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Taught first and second-semester calculus. Data Structures, Matrix Analysis, Special Topics in Computational Analysis, Abstract Algebra I, Intro to Scientific Computing, Special Topics in Numerical ProcessingDuring my first year of the master's program, I was asked to join Serca Communications.

  • Scientific Computing Research Assistant

    Jan 1989 - May 1989

  • Calculus Instructor

    Aug 1988 - May 1989

  • Masters Student

    Aug 1988 - May 1989
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  Serca Communication

  Jun 1989 - Dec 1989

  Network Application Developer

  Developed AppleTalk networking software for a custom hardware Fax Server.

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  Clemson University College of Science

  Jan 1990 - May 1993

  Doctoral Research, Stochastic Models in Operations Research I, Advanced Numerical Analysis I, Special Topics in Applied Mathematics (Neuroscience and Neural Networks), Select Topics in Analysis (Neural Networks), Applied Multivariate Analysis, Select Topics in Analysis.Carlson, R., Lee, C., & Rothermel, K., "Real-Time Neural Control of an Active Structure, Intelligent Engineering Systems through Artificial Neural Networks", Proceedings of the Artificial Neural Networks in Engineering Conference, November 15-18, 1992, St. Louis, MO., Vol. 2, pp. 623-628. Judged to be one of the top five papers in the category of Best Theoretical Paper.Carlson, Rolf, "Three Dynamical Systems for Hypergraph Factorization and Consistent Labeling" (1993). Archived Dissertations. 669. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/arv_dissertations/669Carlson R., "The upper bound neural network and a class of consistent labeling problems," in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, vol. 6, no. 5, pp. 1132-1139, Sept. 1995, doi: 10.1109/72.410357. Show less * Computed the pressure field for a slider bearing.* Optimized caching on an IBM RS/6000 for efficient matrix multiplication in C and Fortran.* Developed several Macintosh applications illustrating the Memory Model neural network.* Simulated high-order neural networks and their applications.* Developed a hybrid statistical and neural network expert system for airborne radar tracking.* Recognized handwritten digits from a simulated computer vision system using an attractor neural network. Show less Linear Analysis, Mathematical Programming, Data Analysis, Calculus of Variations and Optimal Control, Probability, Graph Algorithms, Measure and Integration, Statistical Theory, Stochastic Processes, Probability Theory I ( Kai Lai Chung )Carlson, Rolf E., "A High Order Neural Network Applied to a Scanning Problem" (1991). Archived Theses. 291. https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/arv_theses/291Carlson, R., & Jeffries, C. (1991). Efficient Recognition with High Order Neural Networks. In Proceedings of the 1991 SPIE Conference, Applications of Artificial Neural Networks (Vol. 1469, pp. 684-696). Orlando, FL. Show less

  • Neural Networking Ph.D. Student

    Aug 1991 - May 1993

  • Scientific Computing Research Assistant

    Jan 1992 - May 1992

  • Scientific Computing Research Assistant

    Jun 1991 - Aug 1991

  • Scientific Computing Research Assistant

    Jan 1990 - May 1991

  • Mathematical Sciences Masters Student

    Jan 1990 - May 1991
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  Sandia National Laboratories

  May 1992 - Aug 1992

  Outstanding Student Summer Program

  * Integrated path planning code for robotic control into CimStation.* Investigated the applicability of neural networking to robotic control.

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  MarketSpace Financial, Inc.

  Jan 1993 - Dec 1994

  * Successfully obtained NASD Series 2 and 65 certifications, demonstrating comprehensive knowledge of investment products and regulations, increasing client trust and satisfaction.* Engaged with clients to identify their unique financial goals, driving higher investment returns.* Maximized client returns by strategically buying and selling equities and mutual funds. We analyzed stocks, bonds, cash, and alternative investments, leading to profitable trades.Managed risk for $200 million in assets with proprietary methods and modern portfolio theory.

  • Registered Investment Advisor

    Dec 1993 - Dec 1994

  • Quantitative Analyst

    Jan 1993 - Dec 1994
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  Spring Creek Technologies, Corp.

  Jan 1995 - May 1997

  * Developed mathematical models and simulations for Mikohn Gaming Corp in Las Vegas, NV, to help a game pass regulation with the Gaming Commission in Atlantic City, NJ.* Based on my experience in the gaming industry, I developed the idea for the Universal Gaming Engine (UGE) as a foundation for regulated internet gaming.* I developed a Mathematica library, later called Technical Trader, to enable the creation of complex quantitative analytics and explore trading ideas from the intuition I gained at MarketSpace Financial. Show less

  • Mathematica Application Developer

    May 1996 - May 1997

  • Mathematical Consultant and Creative

    Jan 1995 - Apr 1996
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  Wolfram

  May 1996 - May 1997

  Financial Application Developer

  * Managed external developers and oversaw the Technical Trader production release.* Produced the financial advertising technical content, including for Technical Trader.

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  Sandia National Laboratories

  Jun 1997 - Mar 2011

  * Program Manager for the High Surety SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) program at Sandia National Laboratories.* Technical lead for the High Surety SCADA program, setting technical direction and leading project teams.* Identified both cyber and physical security investment areas to improve SCADA security.* Developed or significantly contributed to funding proposals that secured over $1.5 MM in 2 years for the SCADA business area.* Managed up to 15 staff in a complex, matrixed organization involving cross-functional projects.* Presented on critical infrastructure security in the U.S. and internationally. I have also presented on SCADA security to visiting utilities, DOE, and DOD.* Authored and participated in studies predicting the social and economic consequences related to the disruption of critical infrastructures.* Led high-performance teams in the security assessment of information systems.* Asked by DOE to be part of a nationwide Information Assurance Outreach Program team to assess the security of a SCADA system at a major utility.* Led a team that improved web search at Sandia National Laboratories and met a DOE PEP objective by incorporating aggregated web behavior into a large-scale quadratic optimization problem in three months.* Implemented an algorithm that resides on the leading edge of an analysis pipeline in 12 months, resulting in a speedup of 1600%.* Developed a Hidden Markov Model of cyber and physical security, estimating the Markov Chain using dynamic programming.* Contributed towards the mathematical foundations for consequence based security assessment analysis, the assessment system that is used by Sandia to perform security analysis of complex systems worldwide.Rolf E. Carlson, Mark A. Turnquist, and Linda K. Nozick, "Expected Losses, Insurability, and Benefits from Reducing Vulnerability to Attacks", SAND2004-0742, Sandia National Laboratories, Unlimited Release, Printed March, 2004. Show less

  • Principal Member of Technical Staff

    Jun 1997 - Mar 2011

  • Technical Lead for the National SCADA Testbed

    Jan 2001 - Jan 2004

  • Cryptographic Researcher

    Jun 1997 - Jan 2000
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  IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission)

  Jan 1999 - Jan 2001

  US and DOE Representative

  International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), Technical Committee 57, Working Group 15 (IEC TC57 WG 15) develops international security standards for utility information systems, including Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). WG 15 started as Ad Hoc Working Group 06 (AHWH06) and was formalized later into WG 15.* At DOE's request, I represented the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. technical advisory group to the IEC TC57 AHWG06 and WG15.* I led the team in London that generated the AHWG06 report given in Kyoto, Japan. This report was based on consequence analysis for SCADA security and generated support for turning AHWG06 into WG15.* Attended AHWG06 and WG15 held meetings in the U.S. and various European countries.* Led the architectural subgroup of the IEC TC 57 WG15. Developed requirements, set direction for the security architecture, and identified best practices. Show less

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  Homeschool

  Aug 2013 - Feb 2017

  Homeschool Mathematics and STEM Teacher

  * Taught visual programming, game design, animation, and robotics in 3 years.* Students developed their own Minecraft servers on Linux and Raspberry Pi in 2 months.* Mathematics proficiency for all students increased to at least one year above grade level.

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  Carlson Research, LLC

  Mar 2017 - now

  * Priced equities using a proprietary AI system over fundamental, technical, and text data.* Extracted equities price information using natural language processing (NLP), employing classical classification and large language models (LLM) up to the size of DistilBERT.* Implemented machine learning (ML) workflows in Python on a custom microservices architecture. The workflows are directed graphs that allow cycles and implement the observer software design pattern.* Optimized portfolios using graph algorithms and linear programming.Estimated COVID-19 epidemiological parameters using Monte Carlo simulation under different treatment scenarios.* Discovered an error in the implementation of a classification algorithm and developed a correct implementation, which resulted in a 90% improvement in 2 months.* Implemented and tested the Course Approximation Linear Function machine learning algorithm in 3 months in Python, achieving a 10% speedup and a 10% accuracy improvement.* Developed and deployed the Course Approximation Linear Function, Mixed-Integer Linear Program (Calf-MILP) classifier in Python in 5 months using mixed integer programming.* Developed the Saddle Point Problem for AUC Maximization (SPPAM) classifier in 1 month in Python by approximating the solution to a nonlinear programming problem using linear programming.* Applied a large language model to classify healthcare outcomes in 1 week.* Optimized 12 Python machine-learning pipelines to evaluate the accuracy of healthcare diagnoses in 6 months. Improved execution time by over 100% through automation.* In 3 months, I used Pandas, NLTK, and Spacey to extract 73 million grammatically correct sentences from the Project Gutenberg text archive. Show less

  • Research Scientist

    Aug 2020 - now

  • Data Scientist / Quantitative Researcher

    Mar 2017 - now