Michelle Weirathmueller, PhD

Oceanographer building software for science and community.

Waveform Analytics
Wilmington, NC · est. 2024

michelle@waveformanalytics.com

Selected work

Science · 2018-ongoing

Animal movement simulation software tools

Spec-driven animal movement and sound exposure modeling for regulatory compliance work. Tests are thorough, outputs are reproducible, and the documentation is written for whoever picks this up next.

Science · 2024-ongoing

Acoustic indices as biological activity indicators

Collaborative work with Liz Ferguson (Ocean Science Analytics) testing whether acoustic indices can predict biological activity across aquatic environments. Indices predicted presence reliably but not activity counts — a distinction that matters for large-scale PAM monitoring programs.

Tools · 2026-ongoing

Science spec kit

A scientific adaptation of GitHub's spec-kit. Reproducibility, documentation, and process are part of the workflow from the start, not added at the end. Plugs into AI coding tools via an adapter system.

Github page

Community · 2026

Local Sunshine

A neighborhood discovery app for Pleasure Island — local businesses, events, and community resources. Built to production standard.

Local sunshine web app

About

I founded Waveform Analytics in 2024 after more than a decade in ocean acoustics — graduate research at University of New Hampshire and University of Washington, then noise exposure modeling at JASCO Applied Sciences. Eventually I wanted to build the tools rather than just use them.

My background is marine acoustics and engineering. In practice I build scientific analysis pipelines, software tools, community web apps, and data workflows across whatever domain needs them — marine science, civic tech, local community projects.

I follow spec-driven development, write tests, and document everything assuming someone else will inherit it later. Reproducibility is a requirement, not a feature.

Education

PhD Oceanography

University of Washington, 2016

MS Ocean Engineering

University of New Hampshire

BS Geomatics Engineering

University of New Brunswick

Stack

Python · Next.js · TypeScript · D3 · Marimo · uv · PostgreSQL

Contact

Interested in working together, or just want to talk about something you're building? Get in touch.

michelle@waveformanalytics.com