About
True Ascent Labs is a one-person studio. It comes out of a research career in freshwater science and years of running real water systems — and a habit I can’t shake of building software for whatever problem is in front of me next.
Where I come from
I have a Ph.D. in Freshwater and Marine Science and an M.S. in Limnology and Marine Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a B.A. in Environmental Studies from CU Boulder. That research career ran from USGS Hydrologic Technician to USGS Research Ecologist to a postdoc at INSTAAR, with peer-reviewed work in hydrology, limnology, biogeochemistry, and climate science along the way.
And where I’ve worked
The research sits next to years of day-to-day operations: Colorado water-rights administration, water-supply and drought planning, hydrologic and demand forecasting, SCADA development, augmentation operations, and environmental-monitoring instrumentation. I’ve read the staff gauge in the river and chased down the alarm at an odd hour. Software I build is meant to hold up against both scientific scrutiny and the messy reality of running a live system.
Why the studio exists
A lot of the software the water world runs on is missing, dated, or built by people who’ve never operated a headgate or stood in a treatment plant. I started True Ascent Labs to close that gap — tools made for the people actually doing the work, not to look good in a demo.
And honestly, I like building things. When I get curious about a problem outside water — how to actually plan an early retirement, how to map a climbing route from a photo — I tend to build the tool I wish existed. That’s the other half of what happens here, and the tools are where it lands.
Let’s talk
Whether it’s a water project, one of the tools, or just an interesting problem, I’m glad to hear from you.Get in touch →