Trustee Election Candidates 2020

Voting opens on Monday 7th September and closes three weeks later, at 5PM on Monday 28th September. All members of the Society of RSE are eligible to vote. To cast your vote, please use the form at https://forms.gle/UX5j8Z2bXAqWwmJt5.

In order for your vote to be considered valid, you must be member at the time of casting your vote. If you are not yet a member of the Society, see https://society-rse.org/join-us/ for details of how to join.

Please read the profiles below and select up to 6 candidates you think will make the best contribution to the board of trustees.

The trustees of the Society are responsible for running it effectively to further its aims and meet legal requirements. What we are looking for in trustees and their responsibilities are described in more detail here: https://society-rse.org/trustee-elections-2020/

The following people are standing for election to the Society board of trustees.
Please click on each name to see the details of their candidacy.

Fergus Cooper, Research Software Engineer
University of Oxford
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
I co-founded the Oxford RSE group, which we started in December 2018 with two RSEs. We have now grown that number to six, with no plans to stop hiring. I have actively participated in the RSE community, for instance designing and delivering a workshop at RSEConUK 2019, attended by over 50 people. In my local community, I am a passionate advocate for software best practices, designing and delivering training and speaking at every opportunity: a recent lecture on continuous integration is now available on Oxford Podcasts. Further afield, I gave an overview of Research Software Engineering during my talk at the UK’s international C++ conference, C++ on Sea, which has been watched over 2000 times on YouTube.
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
I have leadership experience in several organisations that is directly transferable to this society. I helped run the Warwick Student Cinema, a profitable and fully-functional cinema with a membership of over 2500. Through my positions as President and Vice President I gained experience liaising with relevant authorities and external sponsors, dealing with customers, coordinating committees, chairing meetings, working with and organising large groups, executing detailed project plans and overseeing five-figure budgets. More recently I have served as Treasurer and President of the graduate student community at Somerville College, Oxford. This involved representing a membership of over 200, and managing five-figure budgets. In addition, I am diligent and careful, and willing to dedicate time to the society.
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
Given my prior experience, helping look after the society’s finances would be a natural fit. I think I could usefully slot in as vice treasurer, and would happily work with and learn from Matt Williams in his role as Treasurer. In more general terms I have experience garnering sponsorship from companies, which might be useful particularly in the context of organising the conference.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
One area that I think we should be ambitious in moving forward is membership. With around 300 society members, but over 2000 on the slack channel and over 7000 research software jobs advertised per year in the UK, there is massive scope to expand our membership. The bigger the membership, the more impact we can have on the community, and the better we will be able to advance the society’s objective of promoting and advancing research that relies on software engineering.
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
“I believe in the objectives of the society. So much of modern research relies on software engineering, and now more than ever we are seeing research software come under intense public scrutiny. Recognising research software jobs and improving research software is something I want to see; it’s something the society is equipped to help with, and I want to be part of that movement. I am eager to commit my time to further the society’s aims. Particularly as an early-career RSE I would hope to bring energy and fresh ideas to the running of the society.
Ian Cottam, Formerly Head of RSE
Formerly University of Manchester
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
“In 2013-14 when I was acting Research IT Lead at Manchester I championed the setting up of a full-time and permanently staffed RSE team. This recommendation, along with many others, was acted upon and Rob Haines was appointed to lead the team. From the beginning of 2020 until my retirement at the end of July I acted as the Head of RSEs at UoM following Rob’s promotion. I co-developed the RSE Skill’s Matrix site (https://rseskillsgraph.itservices.manchester.ac.uk) and have presented it at N8 RSE meetings and elsewhere. This web site is freely available and has been used by other RSE groups. Manchester has a Research IT news blog (https://research-it.manchester.ac.uk/news/) and associated newsletter: I have made several contributions supporting the RSE role and advising researchers. I am also a contributor to the SSI’s web site (https://www.software.ac.uk/ssisearch?search_api_fulltext_1=cottam).”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
“I am an expert in change management (from my time with Manchester’s business school (AMBS). For many years I was active in the BCS helping to run specialist groups and their examinations. I have good communication skills and enjoy the promotional side of supporting RSEs. I am both a technical manager and a programmer (for close on 50 years) https://iancottam.github.io. My career spans both academia (mainly at Manchester but also York) with several years spent in the commercial world.”
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
Community building; Leading teams, projects or committees; Input on policy and writing proposals or bids; Setting up and managing administrative processes; creative ideas.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
I would like to expand the membership to include more people who are not directly employed as RSEs (e.g. infrastructure engineers, academic researchers).
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
Now that I am retired, I would like to spend my time helping the Society to become more established, as well as helping other (smaller and local) charities with their computing needs.
Sam Cox, Senior Research Software Engineer
University of Nottingham
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
“In my first RSE role as a sole central RSE at Leicester, I organised a series of quarterly seminar meetings for all RSEs and interested researchers to share work and ideas, and build a sense of community and a network opportunity. This was a great success, with about 30 people attending on average. I continue to advocate for RSEs now in a role within the much larger, established RSE group in Nottingham, including representing the interests of RSEs and digital technologists on the HDRUK (Health Data Research UK) Summer School Committee to ensure the Summer School is relevant to them as well as more traditional researchers. This is also an opportunity to reach out to RSEs within HDRUK who may not yet know they are RSEs!”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
I have several years’ experience as a trustee of another charity. I also have experience of organising events, and loads of enthusiasm for the careers and community of RSEs!
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
I am best suited to helping push forward the work on the creation of an academic career path for RSEs. I would also welcome a role in the financial side of the Charity.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
I am particularly passionate about the developing the career options for RSEs who sit outside of central RSE groups. I would like to help non-central RSEs to have access to the same non-traditional career paths now available to RSEs within many central RSE groups, if that suits their own vision for their career.
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
The Society, and the community of RSEs, have helped me follow my own desire for a career within academia without following the traditional PDRA route, and to engage with others in a similar position. I’m eager to give back, help the Society develop further, and further the interests of RSEs nationally and internationally.
Teri Forey, Full Stack Software Developer
Self-employed
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
“I’ve been a member of the RSE conference committee for the past two years. I started in 2019 as the poster chair, establishing the first ever poster competition at an RSE conference. This year I was one of the co-web chairs before the conference was sadly cancelled. I then joined the SORSE committee, working both as a website team member, heading the Topic Bazaar team and contributing to the review process. Not only have I been involved in coordinating the RSE conference I’ve also attended since 2017, and when I worked alongside other RSEs encouraged them to get involved and to contribute. I’m passionate about the RSE role and regularly speak about the work we do to my ex-colleagues in research as well as to software engineers. I talked the RSE society and community at the UK Python Conference in 2019, and briefly at the EuroPython Conference 2020, both times finding people in the audience who were unaware of the title and the society, yet had RSE jobs. To be able to welcome them into the community and introduce them to the conference, events and society meant a great deal to me. ”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
“Although I’ve never worked as a trustee for such a large organisation as the society before, I was a long standing committee member of the Nottinghamshire branch of the British Science Association. I’m therefore familiar with working within a committee, chairing AGMs and writing reports. During my time with the BSA I was primarily the committee treasurer and so responsible for the annual treasury report, paying expenses, taking donations and accounting. I’m currently self-employed working both as a freelance RSE and contracting for the Wellcome Trust as a software engineer. I am therefore capable of managing my time appropriately across different projects, am level-headed and able to work effectively from a remote position. I am primarily a full stack web developer, with a strong foundation in both python and javascript. I’ve also worked on numerous WordPress sites, both as an RSE, as a freelancer and as a member of the RSE conference committee web-team. ”
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
I think I would be best suited to work on the website, as although I’m primarily a python web developer I do have experience working with WordPress. I would also be suited to working as a treasurer as I have prior experience doing this role for the British Science Association, although on a much smaller scale.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“There are two things that I would like to help achieve through the Society. The first is to build stronger relationships with research funders, to work on raising the profile of RSEs and the software they produce and how it is credited within grant applications and publications. Since working with the Wellcome Trust, I’ve seen how many people within funders are aware and are starting to look at better crediting open-source software and data yet are not necessarily working alongside the society and their goals. I would love to bring these two groups in closer contact and better communication. The second goal I have is to work on awareness of RSE careers outside of Higher Education Institutes. One of the big issues for a lot of RSEs is career progression and that they are not always supported within an academic environment. I would therefore like to highlight what other roles are out there for RSEs, where they can continue to work with both good software and good research but within a different context. I’ve met numerous people at software engineering conferences who have an RSE role yet, because they’re not in an academic institute, are unaware of the RSE society. This suggests that the inverse is also true, that the society and RSE community is not aware of those roles and job opportunities. ”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
“Firstly I’m passionate about what the RSE society does, in supporting better software within research and the people who make that happen. I think I have the enthusiasm, commitment and drive to help the society continue to grow and to reach a wider more diverse group of people. Joining the RSE community has been life changing for me, it has helped me find a job and position that I absolutely adore and that I would not have been confident enough to reach for without the help of so many people within this community. If I can in any way help to make that happen for someone else, then I have to try. ”
Christopher Handley, Research Software Engineer
University of Nottingham
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
I am senior writer for CYBR magazine, writing articles that often cover the fields of programming e.g. issue 2 contains my article on quantum computing, issue 5 includes my article on the social and political implications of virus tracking software in China.
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
I have 8+ years experience as a podcaster (Darker Days Radio), including editing audio, recording interviews, creating and editing video, running video streams on twitch/youtube, and publishing high quality printed material using adobe software. I have experience of various social media platforms, and the creation of advertisement material and graphic design. I am a practiced writer for various audiences (experts, non-experts, public, and creative writing), and editor.
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
Printed material. Social media. Video/audio editing and production. Marketing.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
Widening the awareness of the RSE role and the career path to those potential researchers who feel there is only one traditional career path.
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
To contribute to building the RSE role and career, helping to define it and the impact and recognition of that role, and gain the experience of managing a community at a national scale.
Fouzhan Hosseini, HPC Application Analyst
The Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG)
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
” I am a software engineer with expertise in parallel programming and performance optimization. In my current role at the EU funded Centre of Excellence in Performance Optimisation and Productivity (POP), https://pop-coe.eu/, I work with HPC users across Europe to help them improve the performance of their code. Majority of them are researchers from different domains of science and technology without formal training on software development best practices. In addition to supporting HPC users to improve the performance of their codes, I contribute in further building the community via different activities e.g. running HPC training workshops, promoting best practices in parallel programming by speaking at international conferences and local events, and supporting members of underrepresented groups to develop their career in the technical space. Here is a list of my activities in the recent months: – With a team of five female instructors, co-organized an HPC training workshop for researchers aimed at underrepresented groups, University of Sheffield, Jan, 2020. – Chairing the Women in HPC (WHPC) NAG chapter. – Serving as a SIGHPC workshop committee member. – Spoke at international workshops and conferences including ISC20 and PEARC20 about best practices in parallel programming and the POP methodology for parallel performance assessment. – Invited talks at the University of Leeds, July 2020, and the Liverpool John Moore University, Mar 2020. – A Panel member at the Breaking Boundaries event, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Leeds, Oct 2019. – Leading delivery of a 2-day CUDA training progamme at HiPerCH workshop, Germany, Sept 2020, https://www.hkhlr.de/en/events/hiperch-12-2020-09-21. More detail is provided in response to the next question to avoid repetition. ”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
“I have extensive experiences in organizing and running events, setting up administrative processes, developing marketing materials, community building activities, strategic planning, promoting and leading inclusivity and diversity at workplace. I have been serving as the chair of the NAG WHPC chapter since March 2020. The aim of our chapter is to ensure NAG considers diversity and inclusivity in all aspects of its business operations, to communicate this more widely to our audiences, and encourage members of underrepresented groups to consider careers in Technical space and in particular in HPC. My role is to facilitate our team efforts toward its common goals. This requires setting up open and honest communication and collaboration internally in NAG, with the WHPC organization and the wider community. I served as a committee member for the Women at Leeds Network at the University of Leeds, from 2015 to 2019. This role involved organizing the network monthly events and yearly conferences. My activities included suggesting topics for events and conference sessions, finding speakers and panel members, advertising, helping with logistics and sometimes chairing the events. For example, I organized an event titled ‘careers out of the box’ for PhD and postdoctoral researchers in STEM fields who were hoping to build a career outside of academia. More than one hundred people attended, and many left us positive and inspiring feedback, feeling the same way themselves. As part of this role, I also took part in discussing and shaping the scope of the network activities and its long-term plans and goals. Currently, I am in charge of running NAG internal seminar series. This role involves identifying topics of interest, finding suitable internal and external speakers and providing the administrative support to run the series smoothly. Besides, over the years, I have been organizer and co-organizer of multiple one-off events e.g. I ran a workshop session on sorting algorithms for secondary school students, as part of the Ada Lovelace day event at the University of Leeds, 2016. Earlier this year, with other WHPC and RSE society members including Mozhgan Kabiri Chimeh and Anna Brown, I co-organized an HPC training workshop for researchers aimed at underrepresented groups, held at the University of Sheffield, 2020. As part of my current role in NAG, I am heavily engaged in designing and developing marketing materials for the POP EU project using different mediums, from fliers, to newsletter article and different form of online materials. As an example, see our POPcasts, a series of short videos interviewing different stakeholders of the project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVvcuB6Oqq8 . Thanks to my current role in the POP EU project and my previous research appointments, I am well experienced in writing funding proposals and project deliverables as well as setting up and managing administrative processes. For example, since I joined NAG, I have written deliverables for the POP project, and have developed processes to support different activities of the POP project, such as a process for following-up with the potential customers and a refined process to reduce the time spent on the technical work. ”
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
As mentioned above, I have a diverse set of skills and experience which are invaluable in running the society. For example, I have extensive experience in running and organizing events and therefore can help with running existing events such as the yearly Conference or SORSE initiative. I can also contribute in setting up new programme as is described in the answer to the next question.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“I have benefited greatly from training opportunities, career development workshops and having mentors who helped me to navigate through difficult points in my career. As a trustee, I would like to strengthen the RSE community and further empower RSEs by helping the society to develop training and mentorship programme to make sure that RSEs get the support they need to have a fulfilling career. I am an advocate for diversity and inclusion at work and I would like to promote diversity and inclusivity within the RSE community as well. I believe providing necessary support such as training and mentoring opportunities for the underrepresented groups are crucial to close the existing gaps. Finally, I would like to help promoting RSE as a career option for graduate students with technical background that have a passion for advancing science by developing software. While it is crucial for universities to set a clear pathway for RSEs promotion and progression, career options for RSEs are not limited to research institutes and universities. ”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
I am a computer scientist by training. What I love the most about this discipline is that it enables advances in other branches of science that would have been unthinkable otherwise. I deeply value developing software to help advancing research and feel empowered with the RSE movement to ensure that software and the people who develop it gain recognition for their work and receive necessary support to have a fulfilling career. I want to pay back to the RSE community and have a positive impact. I am in a point in my career that I feel the best way I can help this movement is by sharing my skills and experience as a trustee and working closely with the society.
Kirsty Pringle, Project Manager, Academic & RSE
Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh; Institute for Climate and Atmospheric Science, University of Leeds
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
“My background is as a research scientist in environmental science, but about a decade ago I switched track away from pure research and moved into a role where I combine research with providing technical support for other researchers, and so I accidentally became a Research Software Engineer. Since this time I have taken a keen interest in the development of the RSE movement, initially watching from the side-lines and more recently as an active member of the community. I have worked in a couple of roles that contribute to the RSE movement: RSE Theme Lead for N8 CIR and Project Manager for the SSI. As RSE Theme Lead for the N8 CIR (2018-2020) I helped to build a engaged community of RSEs across the 8 Universities in the N8 partnership. I did this by organising events for RSEs and RSE leaders as well holding many smaller local meetings to get to know each group. We wrote a series of case studies to highlight the work RSEs do, and held a series of open meetings with academics to understand bottlenecks in the research processes that RSEs could potentially help resolve. The focus was on building a regional community that would help RSEs in their work and careers. I was recently appointed as project manager for the Software Sustainability Institute (0.6 FTE). I am excited to join an organisation that has contributed to the development of the RSE movement. I hope that working in SSI will help me gain broader oversight of the role of RSEs in all fields of research and insight into the process by which new polices and funding calls are developed. I retain a part-time role as an embedded RSE at the University of Leeds. I attend the RSE Conference and have presented talks (Public Engagement and RSEs), a workshop (Implicit Bias) and organised and chaired a panel session (RSEs and Impact). This year I have a small role in helping with the SORSE online sessions. Last year I took over as treasurer for the 2020 RSE conference, but as the conference was cancelled I’m not sure if that really counts! ”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
“I am have strong administrative, organisational and management skills. In addition to my academic role I have worked as an institute manager (Global Food and Environment Institutes, Leeds) and recently became the project manager for the Software Sustainability Institute. I have organised multiple events as part of my N8 CIR RSE Theme Lead role including an RSE “Meet Up” event (attended by 50 RSEs) and many smaller local, more informal events. This year, in an attempt to bring community building online, I ran a series of 6 online seminars and discussion sessions (including a RSE career development panel discussion, invited talks by RSEs and a discussion on encouraging gender balance and diversity in RSE). The N8 role has given me experience of building a community of RSEs. In my academic role at Leeds I have both lead and project managed projects, including a number that rely on national and international collaboration and have contributed to successful funding proposals from UKRI and other funding bodies. I am a member of my faculties Athena Swan committee; and I was a contributing author to our recent successful Athena Swan application, this gave me experience of preparing a complex document are part of a committee. I have experience of managing budgets and for two years I was treasurer for a small charity which raised money (£8K) to improve a children playground in my local area, this was done through a mix of successful funding bids and community fundraising. ”
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
“I have lots of experience of organising events, especially events that are focused on community building and developing engagement. I can also draw on my experience of applying for grant funding to contribute towards funding applications. Through my SSI role I should gain more experience of policy, so may be able to help with that in the future. I also have experience of managing budgets and reporting financial information. As a project manager I am interested in looking for ways to streamline inefficient or time consuming (but necessary) administrative processes. I have a PRINCE2 Foundation project management qualification, which helped me understand how to look at an organisations processes to get an overview of the activities and potentially identify areas which could be made more efficient. As a project manager I have experience of using planning tools to help people us work together to meet deadlines. ”
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“I am keen to ensure that the society continues to work towards engaging with a wide range of RSEs and RSE-type roles, including people with non-standard RSE roles. RSEs that are embedded within a particular research domain often feel less connected to the RSEs movement than those in central groups, I would like to better understand the barriers to engagement that they face and how they feel the RSE community could help them. In my N8 role I spoke a lot with people who are working to setup new RSE groups and found that many groups face similar challenges in different research organisations. I am interested in helping the society to continue to provide advice and help with the challenges involved in setup a new groups, with the aim of helping to make it an easier task. I think this is particularly important for non-Russell group Universities who are generally less well represented in this community. It is clearly important that the society follows best practise with respect to its charitable status, including remaining open about its activities, with the scope to publish a short annual report (including finance) so members understand where effort is being spent. I would be happy to contribute to the development of processes that help make this more streamlined. ”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
“I have gained in many ways by being part of the RSE community; it is an open and welcoming community where my RSE role is both understood and valued. I was pleased to see the society being formed and grow to independence, and I would like to take a turn to play a part in helping it grow further and to help steer it’s future direction. I’ve chosen to apply this year as I think I now have enough understanding of the RSE movement, and where it lies in the research landscape, to be able to usefully contribute to the further development of this important movement. ”
Colin Sauze, Research Software Engineer
Aberystwyth University
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
Although i’ve only officially held the title of RSE for the last 3 years, i’ve spent most of my career to date doing RSE like roles. Throughout this time i’ve always been keen to demonstrate the value that research software engineering can play in improving the quality and reproducibility of research. Whenever I can, I try to promote and encourage best practices including writing readable code, using version control and automated testing. One of the ways I achieve this is by running regular training sessions, where I try to promote these practices to researchers. In particular I find it important to make research students aware of the RSE movement. This helps them learn what best practice looks like, the availability of RSE resources to them and to consider the idea that becoming an RSE is a potential career option.
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
“I’m a director and co-founder of two non-profit companies by limited guarantee. These are: AberLab, a local community makerspace and Little Eco Angels, who are trying to provide solar powered electric car charging at my son’s nursery. Through these I’ve got some experience of preparing company accounts and dealing with the paper work associated with running a non-profit company. Although charities are a little different to companies limited by guarantee many of the concepts are the same. I’ve also got experience of building online communities. Since 2006 i’ve managed the Microtransat Challenge, a transatlantic race for robotic sailing boats. Through this i’ve setup websites, managed mailing lists, handled registrations and generally built up an online community. I’ve got experience of running a wide array of different events. I’m a Carpentries Instructor and have organised many in person and recently virtual workshops. I organised and ran the 2012 World Robotic Sailing Championships and International Robotic Sailing Conference, this included managing attendance, preparing the conference proceedings, arranging the venue and catering, finding sponsors and publicity. I also helped to run the Supercomputing Wales conference at the start of this year where I chaired a session, arranged for speakers to attend and helped to promote the event. I run several wordpress sites in my day job and am familiar with configuring, securing and publishing wordpress articles. I also have significant system administration experience and am currently responsible for running a set of virtual machines providing internet facing web applications, databases and various bits of exotic software.”
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
“I think i’m best placed to help organise and run events or maintain the website and implement new features for it. ”
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“I would like to see the society grow and continue its great work in promoting research software engineering. I’ve spent the last three years working as the sole RSE in my university (at least by official job title) and having access to this community has really helped me. I want to ensure that the society is well placed to help others who might find themselves in that situation, by being able to provide advice, mentoring and a template for how to grow/create an RSE group. I want to ensure that the society can help new and emerging RSE groups. Now that many big universities have established RSE groups, the next challenge is to help smaller universities establish their own groups. As i’m based at a smaller university I hope that my experience can help achieve this. ”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
When I first discovered the RSE community it felt so amazing to find there was a whole community of people in a similar position as me. Since then i’ve continued to be impressed by this community’s diversity, inclusivity, friendliness and its impact upon all kinds of research. I want to be a trustee to give something back to this community and to help it continue to expand and thrive.
Aiman Shaikh, Research Software Engineer
STFC Hartree Centre
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
I have been working as a RSE for almost three years now at STFC Hartree centre. During this time I have been actively involved in many projects and engaged with community by showcasing my work at conferences and seminars. Being an RSE I focus on best practice within my projects and make sure other project partners , which are industrial or academic internal or external understand that. I have presented my work at RSE conference for past two years. I have always spread a positive word about RSE role and society with others. I am a committee member for Women in Stem at Darebury lab. I have been actively involved in Women in HPC society. I have also done outreach programmes at work to get involve with local community.
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
I am an enthusiastic , energetic RSE society member. I would like to spread the awareness of RSE society. I would like to use my current role which involves working on projects with industries and academic at the same time. I have been involved in organising Women in Stem events at Darebusy lab , using my skills , I would like to create a platform for where different societies can have events together to spread the awareness of RSE society with others. I would also be keen on mentoring programme which we spoke about last year at RSE conference(I was one of the panellist). This mentoring scheme will have a really positive impact on RSE’s in developing and polishing their skill set. I am also a diversity ambassador , which I would like to be involved and support always.
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
Mentoring scheme , diversity and inclusion. Spreading awareness about Society. I am happy and open to any work within the organisation.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
As I have mentioned above , I would like to spread the awareness of RSE community to other communities. Becoming a trustee would help me learn more and get involve in the society which I am part of for three years now. I am already an active member of other societies but being on a role as an RSE , I would like to be actively involved in RSE society.
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
I want to be a trustee because I would like to be involved in RSE society where I can get a chance to use my skills and expertise for the society which matters to me. It would provide me an insight to get involve with RSE society in its future direction and in achieving its goals and aims. I am so looking forward to it.
Marion Weinzierl, Research Software Engineer
Durham University
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
“I was member of the programme committee for the 2020 RSE Conference and, as this was cancelled, became member of the SORSE programme committee. For SORSE, I am in the Talks team and in the Panels and Discussions team, as well as in the Code of Conduct team and in charge of the mentoring scheme. In Durham, I have helped to shape and establish the Advanced Research Computing RSE team in university and how it interacts with researchers. I am also active in the community by contributing to UKRSE Slack channel discussions (see, e.g. https://software.ac.uk/blog/2020-02-04-its-just-software-engineering , where I summarise such a discussion), and attending the Collaborations Workshop.”
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
Through my work in the SORSE committee, I am in contact with a wide range of international and national RSEs. I have worked in academia and industry, as embedded (postdoc-)RSE and as part of a central RSE team. I have spend time working and researching in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Ghana and Israel. This gives me a broad spectrum of insights into different environments and ways of thinking and working.
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
“I would like to contribute to the work done in the membership and EDI activities of the Society: Broaden the spectrum of members and making the Society truly inclusive. Also, I want to contribute to the overall aim of promoting Research Software Engineering, and raising the profile of Research Software Engineers. ”
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“I would like to develop and engage with activities that broaden the diversity of members that identify as RSEs and feel represented by the Society. I also would like to contribute to the work on establishing a RSE career path, training and CPD opportunities, and developing career perspectives for Senior RSEs. Another issue that I am interested in is the interaction with other societies, and with society as a whole. Wouldn’t it be great if the RSE role would become so established that kids would say “”When I grow up I want to be Research Software Engineer””? Still some work to do to get there!”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
As a trustee, I would be well placed to contribute to the RSE community, and to work with amazing people to achieve great things (all of the above and more!) for RSEs.
Claire Wyatt, RSE Community Manager
Software Sustainability Institute, University of Southampton
How have you contributed to furthering the RSE role and building the community?
Since January 2016, I have held the position of ‘RSE Community Manager’ and have worked hard to create events, resources that the community needs and helped to raise awareness through the Society twitter account, the slack space and the Society newsletter of the role and the community. Our online slack community is growing daily along with our twitter followers from around the world which shows that my effort is reaping the reward!
What abilities can you bring to the role of trustee that would be useful in establishing and running the Society?
Having been working with the RSE Community since 2016, I have a good understanding of the community’s requirements and know many of its members both nationally and internationally which I think will be a great help for the work we want to achieve in the coming year. I am very enthusiastic about raising awareness of this role and bringing about the changes that the community needs. I have extensive experience in organising successful events and will continue to identify the needs of the community for networking and skills training.
Which of the current activities that the society engages in are you best suited to help with?
I would like to continue as Conference & Events Lead to deliver the annual conference that will be hopefully in person in 2021 and continue to identify and deliver ad-hoc events as the community needs. I also would like to continue working as Communications Lead developing the website, the newsletter, slack and twitter further and continue as co-lead for Membership.
What would you like to help achieve through the Society in the role of trustee?
“This year, if successful with my trustee nomination, I intend to nominate myself for the Vice-President role to work closely with the new President. Now that the structure, policies and financial formalisation of the Society has been completed this past year, we now need to look at our wider strategy both nationally and internationally. I believe that we need to leverage the formal Society to work on several important strategic areas: -Develop the next stage of our strategy to gain recognition of the RSE role within research institutes and the need for a career path -Build relationships with other organisations and associations that are relevant to our community -Further improve our relationships with the UK funding councils in a structured way -Continue to build our relationships with other national RSE Chapters forming an international association, a group of groups and enable other countries to create their community by lending our resources and expertise -Focus on diversity and inclusion of gender, domain, organisations and more -Take the pulse of the community and find out what we want from the trustees, what we want as the Membership benefits, what’s on your wish list for the next 12 months? -Bake in sustainability of the community by encouraging and enabling community at a local and regional level as well as improving our national level support to groups and research-group embedded RSEs -Engage the wider community in working groups in an area that they are passionate about. ”
Why do you want to be a trustee of the Society?
Through the Society and with the community supporting them, the trustees can continue to open doors to raise awareness and make progress on our community’s goals. I have the skill set and the enthusiasm to make this happen, and would like the trustee position to give me the mandate.
For existing trustees only:
How have you contributed to setting up and running the Society in your role as a committee member or trustee so far?
I have served as a trustee since the inception of the charity, regularly attending the monthly meetings and contributing to the decision making and strategy. This past year, I took on the roles of Conference Lead and initiated the Series of Online Research Software Events (SORSE) in place of the conference. I have also contributed as Communications Lead for social media and the website, started the Society newsletter in February 2020, completed some of the Secretary tasks and worked with the Membership Lead on improving our membership offering. In addition to these roles, as Community Manager, I engage and enable members in new initiatives, organise the RSE Leaders meetings and build relationships with national RSE Chapters contacts.