David Gavaghan
David Gavaghan 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).
Martin Robinson
Martin Robinson is a Senior Research Software Engineer, and the OxRSE head of group. Previously he was in the Computational Biology group within the Department of Computer Science. He is also a co-director for the SABS R3 doctoral training centre.
He is interested in modelling and simulation, particle-based methods, Bayesian inference and developing robust and reliable research software. Through this work he has authored or contributed to a number of research software projects, including Aboria, PINTS, and Trase. He is a C++ developer at heart, but can appreciate the Zen of Python and is keen to learn just about anything new.
Fergus Cooper
Fergus Cooper did his DPhil in the Wolfson Centre for Mathematical Biology.
Fergus’s research focusses on the development of computational tools which he applies to the understanding of biological processes in epithelial development. Through the development of computational modelling tools he has become interested in, and an advocate for, software best practices within academia.
Fergus is a leading developer on the Chaste project, contributes to a number of other projects including Trase, and has a particular interest in the C++ programming language.
Mihaela Duta
Mihaela Duta is a Research Associate in the Oxford University Babylab within the Department of Experimental Psychology. Her current research focus is on neuro-computational models for language-mediated attention in infancy.
Mihaela has a long-standing active interest in research software engineering. From 2012 to 2018 she held the role of Research Software Officer in the Department of Experimental Psychology, during which time she provided sustainable software infrastructure for a wide variety of neuropsychology research projects. She specialises in translational interdisciplinary research involving the design, development and deployment of tablet-based tools for cognitive assessment. Apps assessing language development in children, attention and executive function in adolescents and young adults, and cognitive impairment related to old age or trauma have been deployed in schools, population surveillance centres and clinics in the UK, Europe, Africa and South America.
Mihaela’s current research interests include machine learning, signal processing, language development and research methods. She has been a member of the committee for the UK community of the Research Software Engineers since 2016.
Graham Lee
Graham Lee came to Research Software Engineering following a career in industry, working with companies such as Apple, ARM, Facebook, and Sophos. His academic background is in Physics and Software Engineering.
Graham believes his life’s mission is to make it easier and faster to make high-quality software that respects privacy and freedom. He is often seen speaking at industry conferences, particularly related to Apple technologies, and has authored books on software security, testing, object-oriented programming, and Python programming.
His software engineering interests include test-driven development, design by contract, and the Smalltalk and LISP programming environments.
Thibault Lestang
Thibault holds a PhD from École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, involving statistical physics, fluid mechanics and high performance computing.
He has been writing research software to assess the applicability of statistical physics algorithms to the numerical simulation of extreme events in turbulent flows.
Thibault joined OxRSE out of his enthusiasm for both research and software engineering, as well as computing. His main interests are rare-event sampling algorithms, turbulence, the Lattice Boltzmann Method, High Performance Computing.
Abhishek Dasgupta
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 and political science.
As a Research Software Engineer, he is interested in advancing software engineering best practices, such as unit testing and reproducibility in research.
John Brittain
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.
Pip Liggins
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.