Professor Simon Hettrick is Deputy Director of the Software Sustainability Institute, and co-Director of the Southampton Research Software Group.
He works with stakeholders from across the research community to develop policies that support research software, the people who develop that software and the researchers who rely on it. Simon’s research focuses on the use of software in the research community with the aim of understanding practices and demographics. In this role, he conducted the first study of software reliance in academia.
Simon is a passionate advocate for Research Software Engineers. He orchestrated a campaign to gain recognition for this community, which has grown from a handful of people in 2013 to a substantial international community numbering in the thousands. He was the founding chair of the UK’s Association of Research Software Engineers and is now a Trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering and its Treasurer. He has been treasurer of the RSE conference since it began in 2016.
Simon is one of the Directors of the Southampton Research Software Group based at the University of Southampton. The group makes research software engineering expertise available to researchers across the University, provides training in software engineering and encourages collaboration and the sharing of knowledge between researchers who rely on software.
He is a member of the UKRI expert group on e-Infrastructure, a member of the STFC Projects Peer Review Panel (large projects), and an Advisory Board member for the journal Patterns. He has a background in physics and patent law.