Malek Singer Teledyne Optech

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I had no idea, even when I started university at the age of 17. I wasn’t someone that fell in love with legos (and consequently architecture), or circuit boards (and consequently engineering) etc.

What was your education journey like?

Overall, excellent. Had very little sleep, specifically for the last two years, but was excited and driven by the opportunities I had. Coursework was fun, and so were the field travel opportunities. Working past midnight with a tight knit group of 2-3 friends on labs and assignments, and helping those peers and knowing that they will be around to help when I am struggling with a subject.

I would recommend the undergraduate course to anyone looking to acquire new skills, or sharpen existing ones. Without any doubt, I can comfortably say that there is a direct link between me taking on the field research opportunity with the Permafrost Lab in Yellowknife (2016) and signing the contract to my first job in 2017. If professors ask you if you want to use their laser scanner and drone, always say yes (I can’t believe I even hesitated at the time).

I learned how to work with little supervision. Also, how to see through my personal feelings about certain subjects (e.g. statistics), and instead accept and be motivated that they are an undeniable feature of the world we live in. Probably also that I should be painting the fence on both sides.

My education offered the opportunity to learn from outstanding supervisors (Stephan Gruber and Murray Richardson), learn hands on skills with hardware that I had not learned during the coursework, sharpen software scripting skills, push myself to be a data interrogator and a synthesizer of both field data and literature.

“I think you should start over and re-write this from a blank slate” was one of the most character-building moments I had as an undergraduate. If you’re wondering, it was shortly before the deadline for my thesis, and came from the one and only Stephan Gruber (he was right of course).

What do you do now?

I’m currently a Product Manager working on the development of lidar based mapping technology. When I was a researcher at Carleton, I did research with the Geologic Survey in Yellowknife on permafrost thaw, specifically investigating the use of ground based lidar, and uav-based SfM photogrammetry for mapping ground in such heterogenous environments.

How did you get into your present position?

Stephan and Murray gave me the opportunity to use their laser and drone, without which, I would not have had the skills to land my job in a lidar manufacturing company. I found my current company through Koreen Millard and my social media network, when I was in my last year. I looked the company up and applied. Heard back several months later. Interviewed a few times and got in.

What is your ideal job?

It evolves, greatly. The target has changed from researcher, to data scientist, to designer, to business developer. I still retain fascinations within all of those. Generally speaking, if I have get the opportunity to learn, I will take the opportunity. Also generally speaking, I remain wanting to be in the “reality capture” sphere, specifically “geospatial reality capture” which is an umbrella to describe technology that can map/image/capture the physical space, both natural and built up. Why? Measuring is a crucial step to interrogate and improve.

If you want your ideal job you should pick up more skills, and transferable ones. Be more open to soft skills, not just hard technical ones.

In my first month on the job, I was frequently going up in 2-3 passenger airplanes to test airborne lidar sensors. The second or third time I was at the airport hangar, the main flight Operator asked me to get a blanking plate to cover one of the two holes in the belly of the airplane. Blanking plates are metallic plates that close a hole in the belly of an airplane, so that no one falls through that hole during flight and belly holes are where sensors (lidar or cameras) are installed. I didn’t know what a blanking plate was, and was to embarrassed to ask, so I only asked “what does it look like?” The Operator told me “it has black and green stripes”. I went to the storage area in the hangar, found the thing with green and black stripes and brought it back. Felt pretty good, until the Operator said “Malek, that’s a sleeping bag”. So don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Besides doing a thesis, it would be to gravitate towards the courses and skills that you don’t think you will do well at. Approach those with an open mind, and an excitement to “pick up a new skill”, especially one that you can add to the resume. I would recommend learning non-technical skills on the fly, such as strategic planning, marketing, and resource management. Also saying no to work that you don’t have capacity for and working reasonable hours.

Enjoy yourself. When I was drilling permafrost cores in Yellowknife, I tried to liven up the repetitive work every time I made a 2m core anywhere by yelling over to Chris to say “I FOUND PERMAFROST”. I’m sure it was somewhat annoying, but it did make us laugh at the time.

What talents and skills have you cultivated during your career?

My time at Carleton University provided me the opportunity to learn how to use state of the art technology, specifically ground based laser scanning, and uav-based structure from motion photogrammetry. It also enabled me to think in a multivariate way and understand that several factors contribute to the variation of a phenomena, both in space and in time.

I’ve also developed skills in airborne lidar installation, flight planning, in-air operations, processing, and troubleshooting, market research, technology research, defining requirements for innovative roadmaps and managing their evolution with time, writing technical proposals, etc.

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