People

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Dr. Martin Robinson

Martin is also co-director for the SABS R3 Centre for Doctoral Training.

Martin's research background is primarily in computational modelling and inference and has authored or contributed to numerous software projects including PINTSPyBaMMChasteAboria and Trade.

 

David is Professor of Computational Biology in the Department of Computer Science. His research is interdisciplinary and involves the application of mathematical and computational techniques to problems in the biomedical sciences.

He has a long-standing interest in computational science, and in the development of open source software tools and of computational infrastructures to support the research scientist.

David currently serves on the advisory board of the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI).

 

Fergus did his DPhil in the Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology

Fergus’s research focused on the development of computational tools which he applied to the understanding of biological processes in epithelial development. Through the development of computational modelling tools he became interested in, and an advocate for, software best practices within academia. 

Fergus co-founded the Oxford RSE group in 2018 and served as a trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering from 2021-23. He is a leading developer on the  Chaste project, and has contributed substantially to many software projects, including with the Palamara Lab. He also contributes to several open-source projects, including PINTS and Trase, and has a particular interest in the C++ programming language. 

 

 

Mihaela has a DPhil in Engineering Science from University of Oxford and substantial research experience in engineering and experimental psychology. Her research interests are computational neuroscience, machine learning, cognitive assessment and genomics.

Mihaela served a founding trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering (2019-2021) and was also a committee member for the RSE Association (2016-2019).

Since joining the group in 2018 she authored or substantially contributed to a variety of projects including LanguageScreen, OMS Programme on Global Epilepsy,  PETRUSHKA trial, MANA trial, REF 2021 Data ExplorerOCSPlus and OxMET.

 

 

Abhishek has a DPhil in Computer Science from the University of Oxford.

His interests are in innovative applications of machine learning and complex systems techniques to problems across several domains, such as computational social science, political science and epidemiology.

As a Research Software Engineer, he is interested in advancing software engineering best practices, such as unit testing and reproducibility in research.

 

Oliver completed his DPhil in Materials Science at the University of Oxford. He then spent a number of years undertaking lab-based research with the aim of developing early-stage drugs targeting enzymes involved in the epigenetic regulation of gene expression.

Since swapping his pipette for a keyboard, he has spent time working at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron facility, where he contributed to tools such as volume-segmantics and SuRVoS2 that use machine learning to aid analysis of 3D imaging data. In addition, he has also created deep learning tools for image classification and object detection to automate the analysis of protein crystallisation trials and has worked on projects that incorporate the work of citizen scientists to annotate large microscopy datasets.

 

After working as a software developer in industry for a couple of years, Jack completed a PhD in Fusion Plasma Physics in 2021 at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. Here he ran experiments and simulations studying Langmuir probes, but found a love for developing software tools for facilitating research. Following this he spent a number of years working as a Software Developer at CEDA (the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis) on the JASMIN supercomputer, where he developed a unified storage interface tool – the NLDS – to allow users to write data quickly to tape using an s3 cache.

Jack joined the Research Software Engineering in 2024 to get back closer to researchers and help them to create novel solutions to their research problems while adhering to modern software engineering best-practices.

 

Matt completed a DPhil in Experimental Psychology in 2022, investigating decision-making and advice-taking. He has a programming background in web development in the early 2000s, and has an academic background in English Literature, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science. 

Since joining the group in 2022, Matt has developed Petrushka, a web application for a clinical trial in psychiatry; built data pipelines to support projects in geography and genomics; worked on gaze detection using webcams for psychology experiments; and developed a platform for sharing data from battery cycler experiments. 

 

 

Pip holds a PhD in Earth Sciences from the University of Cambridge, where she developed computational models of volcanic gas chemistry and the temporal evolution of atmospheres. These were used to study how the chemistry of exoplanet interiors may come to be inferred from their atmospheres. 

Pip joined OxRSE in 2023 out of an enthusiasm for developing software solutions for research. As a Research Software Engineer, she enjoys working closely with academics to design innovative solutions using the latest and greatest languages, tools and libraries. 

 

 

John obtained his Phd in Electrical Engineering from the University of York, where he developed novel signal processsing techniques to understand the neural mechanisms underpinning control of human locomotion. From there he continued his exploration of biological systems before being appointed Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Birmingham with a focus on novel forms of analytic techniques and computational models applied in the field of Human Neuroscience. 

John joined the Research Software Engineering group in 2023 with a strong interest in promoting best practices in software engineering within the research space, teaching software engineering skills to others, and a desire to contribute his skillset to a range of cutting edge research projects. 

 

 

Alasdair Wilson obtained a PhD in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Glasgow in 2015, where he developed theoretical models and numerical simulations of partially ionized plasmas. Since then, he has worked in a diverse range of plasma-related domains, including biomedical plasmas, fusion plasmas, substellar atmospheres, and solar physics. 

With a passion for advancing open-source science, Alasdair is particularly active in the field of solar physics. He serves as a maintainer of sunpy, a Python-based data analysis environment for solar physics. Additionally, Alasdair is the developer of SolarMonitor, a website that performs unified data retrieval, processing, and presentation of disparate sources for solar data through both a website and API. 

Since joining the group in 2023 Alasdair's primary focus is assisting academics in developing bespoke software solutions and promoting best programming practices within the broader scientific community. 

 

 

Jim gained a PhD in Astronomy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995, modelling the composition and properties of interstellar dust in FORTRAN 77. Since then, he has worked for the Royal Observatory Greenwich and National Maritime Museum in London, where he learnt web development and accessibility, and was technical lead for a variety of digital humanities projects. More recently, he has spent more than ten years building online tools for the Zooniverse citizen science platform.

Since joining the group in 2024, Jim is interested in working with researchers to develop usable, accessible, maintainable software tools.

 

Nicolas started his career as a professional software developer before getting absorbed into academia and eventually completing a PhD in Philosophy at UQÀM (Université du Québec à Montréal).

His research interests are focussed on agent-based modelling. He has contributed to the NetLogo modelling platform and written multiple extensions for it. In recent years, he has been the main programmer for the POSEIDON ABM of fisheries. He loves to teach about these topics and has been on the faculty of the Behave Summer School since 2016.

His recent coding activities have revolved mostly around Java and R, but he has a special fondness for functional programming.

 

Rowan gained an MSc(Res) in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford as a Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Trust scholar and studied mechanical, electrical and biomedical engineering before working as a software test engineer and data scientist in the medical device space. Past work has included writing data analysis pipelines and developing software best practice guidelines for researchers.

Since joining OxRSE he has worked on the Wellcome-funded Dengue Advanced Readiness Tools (DART) project.

 

Alex has over 25 years' experience working in industries where quality, stability and scalability are paramount. His most recent roles have been in medical and scientific technology after previously working in CAD, banking, games, and animation software.

Since working with Oxford Nanopore - where Alex developed microfluidic control software for rapid development of lab protocols - he has been focused on working with researchers and scientists, collaborating on new systems whilst applying good code discipline.

 

Daniel works in the background to keep the administrative wheels of the OxRSE group turning, including finance and recruitment.

He has held various admin and management roles in the University, and is currently working part-time while engaged in his own doctoral study.

 

Genevieve oversees the administrative side of the OxRSE team looking after finance, recruitment and other essential functions to support the RSEs.

Before joining the OxRSE team she worked in various administrative and finance roles within the University.