Mira Mechtley, Ph.D., K.S.C.
I currently work as a lead engineer at Dinogod, working on Bounty Star. I do almost all of my gamedev work in Unity 3D. I previously worked as a client/full-stack engineer at Dire Wolf Digital, and as the iPhone specialist and resident science pedant at indie video game developer Flashbang Studios. I contributed significantly to Root and Eternal at Dire Wolf, and to Splume, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, Jetpack Brontosaurus, Minotaur in a China Shop, Rebolt, Blush, Crane Wars, and Time Donkey at Flashbang. I also developed the iPhone boxing game Touch KO with my brother Adam Mechtley.
Portfolio ‣
I have a Ph.D. in astrophysics and previously worked as an active researcher at Arizona State University and the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie in Heidelberg, Germany. My research expertise is on the growth of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. I worked primarily with the Hubble Space Telescope and large ground-based telescopes, including the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, the European Very Large Telescope in Chile, and the Gemini telescopes in Hawaii and Chile. My dissertation, Markov Chain Monte Carlo Modeling of High-Redshift Quasar Host Galaxies in Hubble Space Telescope Imaging, is freely available via the link below. As an undergrad, I developed Appreciating Hubble at Hyper-speed, an interactive simulation used as a teaching tool for introductory astronomy labs.
Research ‣
Outside of work I enjoy travel, hiking, cycling, citrus, and making things, especially custom electronics for video games.