Eric Saunders

Eric Saunders has a diverse work experience spanning over several years. Eric started their career as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Las Cumbres Observatory in 2007. Eric then worked as a Software Engineer and later became a Software Team Lead, leading the transition to a scrum-based development process and hiring new team members. Eric also served as the Director of Software Engineering at Las Cumbres Observatory, where they led a team of software engineers and was responsible for the development and maintenance of the full software stack. Prior to that, they worked as a Senior Software Engineer and was the architect and principal developer of the LCO adaptive network scheduler. In 2016, Eric became the Director of Engineering at Las Cumbres Observatory, overseeing all technical work, budget, and personnel. In 2018, they joined Interstellar as a Software Engineer, building software on top of the Stellar network. Currently, Eric is the Director of Engineering at Stellar Development Foundation, where they are responsible for the platform software and manages the Open Source Horizon API server and related development toolkits.

Eric Saunders obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Astrophysics from the University of Exeter from 2003 to 2007. Prior to that, they completed a Master of Science (MSc) degree in High Performance Computing from The University of Edinburgh from 2002 to 2003. Eric also holds a MSci degree in Physics from Durham University from 1998 to 2002. Additionally, Eric has obtained certifications in Discrete Optimization and Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1 from Coursera in 2013.