About

Hi, I'm Niels.

I'm a data scientist with a life sciences background. Most of my work sits at the intersection of mass spectrometry and practical software tools that people actually use.

Niels van der Velden at Machu Picchu

What I do

I build end-to-end data workflows: from messy raw data to clean analysis, reports, models, and web apps. I work mostly in R and Python, and I care a lot about making results reproducible and easy to share.

Before consulting independently, I spent 5 years at Molecular Partners as an Expert Scientist. I led mass spectrometry projects and helped develop an automated analysis platform for our measurements.

Background

I did my PhD at ETH Zürich in the group of Prof. Dr. Markus Aebi under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Markus Künzler.

My research focused on borosins, a class of ribosomally synthesized peptides from the fungus Omphalotus olearius. I spent most of my PhD figuring out how OphA methylates its own backbone to produce omphalotin, a cyclic peptide that kills nematodes.