RSE Stories: Recent Episodes
Vanessa Sochat
Fernanda isn't sure if it was genetics or fate that led her to high performance computing, but she's come a long way, and is grateful for the journey
Six past Early Career Program participants tell us about their experiences in the program and why others should apply as part of Supercomputing 2022.
Data engineering is an increasingly important part of research software engineering, and Ana tells us why.
Marina Kraeva of Iowa State University leads the planning of the Early Career Program this year at Supercomputing 2022.
Jay Lofstead of Sandia National Laboratories has some big plans for the Inclusivity Committee at Supercomputing 2022.
Megan Phinney brings excitement and energy to the HPC community, and her story started with a cool pen.
Rowland has insights about opportunity and inclusion that have potential to change how you think.
Peter was one of the original voices of RSE Stories as a host, and now we've flipped the mic to hear his story!
In this 70th episode, Computational Scientist Peter Vaillancourt shares what he's learned about diversity and reflects on the challenges our community faces.
Chase Million saw a world of work that he wanted to do, but not via a traditional academic route.
Tim Haines is a quintessential passionate learner, and will tell you all about astrophysics, compilers, and systems.
Lou was excited for his favorite holiday, Halloween, but he couldn't have predicted how an Open Source Halloween would change his life.
Alec Scott is always building things, and takes his servers with him from home to college.
Michael Heroux of Sandia National Laboratories has a rich history with development and leadership for scientific software.
Kalina is a research software engineer that specializes in Scientific Visualization, and combines science, the arts, and technology to make stunning cinematic performances.
Kate Court made the exciting journey from Arts and Humanities to computer science. On the way she enthusiastically helps communities build confidence in digital technologies.
The story of the RSE Stories podcast host, a passionate developer, and avocado loving dinosaur.
Meet Mark Abraham from the EuroCC National Competence Centre Sweden and one of the guardians of the Gromacs open source library.
Edd Salkield is a research software engineer and founder of Dreaming Spires, a research software consultancy bringing together developers and researchers.
Frank Loeffler is one of the founding members of the German RSE association. In this episode he takes us through the process to build a community more or less from scratch.
Daniel Nüst is a research software engineer with interest and expertise ranging from reproducibility to geoinformatics. His journey has taken him from industry, to graduate training, to asking fundamental questions about how we do research, and how the process could be changed for the better.
Meet Mark Turner, Head of the RSE team at Newcastle University in the UK. In this episode we discuss the transition from engineer to manager and how to build effective RSE teams.
Ron is passionate about software engineering, teaching, and supporting the research community.
Paul Richmond has stepped up to be the new president of the Society for Research Software Engineering in the UK. After years of masquerading as researcher he was finally able to move into a role as RSE. Oh, and watch out for what's hidden in his garden.
Dan Katz is well-known in the research software engineering world for his leadership, and consistent work on policy and community.
Research Software Engineers work with hardware too, and we should grow community around it.
As former president of the Society of Research Software Engineering Alys Brett has a unique insight into the RSE movement and where it's heading.
What does Research Software Engineering mean at a National Lab, and how is rock climbing like programming?
Olivia Guest is a computational cognitive modeler. She is also a prolific publisher and blogger. In this episode we discuss, amongst other things, two of her catchy blog posts.
Tania Allard is much more than a research software engineer, fostering community growth, and excitement for open source.
Maëlle is well known in the R community: from being an associate editor at rOpenSci, the rWeekly blog or community initiatives such as rLadies. She has also an interesting portfolio of projects, including a project to monitor the impact of environmental factors on cardiac disease in India.
Let's put RSEs on equal footing with academics and professionals and get them recognised and formal roles, says Nooriyah Lohani from NESI in New Zealand. That requires to reach decision makers. And for that you need to build and foster a strong community first.
A journey of discovering a desire to be a research software engineer, finding a niche, and then fighting to keep it.
Meet Brian Hills, Deputy CEO and Head of Service Design at the Data Lab in Scotland. After years in the private sector Brian joined Datalab to help bridge the gap in data science between universities and the private sector. Ethics in data plays an important part and success strongly depends on your value set, says Brian.
As director of the research software alliance Michelle takes us through the necessary changes we need to cope with the scientific challenges of the future. This includes digital skill sets as well as providing for reliable and safe handling of digital data and assets. In all these endeavours, open science is critical, says Michelle.
When Nick left the private sector and went back to university to get his degree in computer science he found that he 'learnt how he should've done things' all along. Being back in academia Nick got himself involved in building the RSE community in Australia and New Zealand.
Where do object oriented design, Fortran, and innovation in designing your role collide? Listen to the episode this week to find out!
From assessing snow fall in Britain to livestock movements, Mike has provided his expertise in data science to policy makers and influencers. So testing the data and underlying assumptions is an essential step. For this it is sometimes necessary to move outside our comfort zone.
If you need to publish or perish as an academic researcher, then as a research software engineer you need to establish or perish.
What do plankton surveys, R and reproducibility have in common? In this episode, Anna Krystalli from the University of Sheffield (UK) shares her vast experience and covers areas from macro biology to R programming, community building to making software more open and reproducible.
Diversity of background, perspective, and taking care of yourself and your team are only a few of the ingredients for resilient teams and tools.
How can we move beyond publish or perish in science? Meet Emmy Tsang who is passionate about changing and improving the way we communicate science and make scientific discovery faster, fairer and better.
Success for a research team happens at the intersection between system admins, research software engineers, and researchers. No one knows this better than Blake Joyce.
Have you ever wondered how AI can improve the taste of beer? Look no further than the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), where James Collier and Alexander Botzki are working hard to help beer lovers enjoy their drinks even more.
Successful and reproducible science is not just about writing software, but creating interfaces and interactions that are comfortable for researchers to use. In this episode, Sandra Gesing tells us about the importance of science gateways.
Meet Radovan from Tromsø in Northern Norway, who is building exciting software and teaching students how to be good engineers. He is also busy building and growing the Nordic RSE community with colleagues from Sweden, Finland and other countries.
Crafting computational narratives and answering questions in the real world with grace and Python.
Ever wondered how AR can help blind and low vision people? Meet Camilla Longden, RSE at Microsoft, who uses AI and machine learning technologies to help improve their lives.
Meet Stephan Druskat, RSE at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Listen to Stephan explain his exciting work for research in linguistics and his contributions to making software citable.
For about 10 years the Software Sustainability Institute in the UK has been the backbone of research software engineering. But how did their work fare during the coronavirus pandemic? And how will research software engineering change in future?
Today from across the pond: How research software engineers help fighting infectious diseases like the coronavirus. What challenges do they face?
Have you ever thought about what makes good software and communities? Hint: it's a lot of the same as would be needed to tend a garden.
Sometimes becoming an RSE is greater than the job description. It's about finding a place where you belong.
Bob Killen talks about a new kind of research software engineer, one that focuses on message based workflows on container clusters.
How do software and agriculture collide? Christoph gives us a first hand look at what it means to work on and develop for a farm.
Ben Glick shares a rich undergraduate experience that ranges from building an HPC system to dancing with fire.
Ross thought he might want snacks and nap-pods, but found happiness in The Lab Without A Couch
It's good to follow best practices for container building. Otherwise, you might lose yourself.
For the second episode of RSE Stories, we interview graduate student Chris Dembia from Stanford University.