IT Services

Meet the team

Adina Rahim

Adina is a Research Software Engineer in Research IT. She has experience in Alexa skill development, GUI development, RPA, AI, Deep Learning for Computer Vision, Text Mining, and Recommender Systems. Currently, she is supporting SMEs in Greater Manchester, empowering them to utilize AI for business growth. Additionally, as a Python developer, she actively assists researchers in making ECGs explainable with colour, aiming to aid in the early detection of life-threatening heart conditions.

Email: Adina.rahim@manchester.ac.uk

Adrian Harwood

Adrian is the Head of Research Software Engineering in Research IT. He joined the RSE team in 2019 having spent his early career with posts as a systems engineer for Rolls-Royce, and a post-doc and later lecturer in Virtual Engineering (Computational Fluid Dynamics) at the University. His background is in Aerospace Engineering with his PhD in Computational Aero-Acoustics. Before taking the Head of RSE role, Adrian launched the Mobile Development Service (MDS) within Research IT. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng) through the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) and a certified SAFe 4 Agilist. Consequently, Adrian is a big advocate of robust engineering processes and agile software engineering and project management practices. Technically, he has significant experience in both Mobile Development and High-Performance Computing using a wide range of C# and C/C++ APIs including CUDA, OpenGL/GLSL, MPI, HDF5, VTK, Kinect, Xamarin (Android and iOS), .NET. He also maintains several open-source GitHub projects written in Java, MATLAB and VBA.

Email: Adrian.Harwood@manchester.ac.uk

Aman Goel

Aman is a Research Software Engineer in Research IT, with a background in computer science and mathematics. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Delhi in 2022 and joined the RSE team in 2023. His time is currently divided between the Mobile Development Service (MDS), training, and community & outreach. Prior to joining Research IT, Aman was a part of the Princeton Research Computing group at the IRIS-HEP Software Institute, where he worked on research software in particle physics.

He is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow and an Open Life Science project leader. He is passionate about open science and is a certified Carpentries instructor, regularly delivering training workshops. His research interests include software sustainability, community building, physics, and analysis systems.

Email: aman.goel@manchester.ac.uk

Andrew Gilchrist

Andrew is a Systems Administrator working as a member of the Research team. His current role involves supporting the research needs of academics mainly within the fields of genomics, bioinformatics, biomedicine and bio-imaging through provision of High Performance Computing and storage for “big data”.

Email: Andrew.Gilchrist@manchester.ac.uk

Andrew Jerrison

Andrew is a Research Software Engineer and prior to this role had a background in industry working in commercial enterprise software. He is the lead software engineer for Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health research projects. Since he has been at the University he has worked on software for a large number of research projects within the Humanities and Medicine areas. He designs and develops bespoke applications across different technologies and platforms, which support the research of the University. Andrew also acts in a technical consultant role for the preparation of grant bids.

Email: Andrew.Jerrison@manchester.ac.uk

Andrew Rowley

Andrew works as a Senior Software Engineer and is assigned to work on key software for the Human Brain Project within the APT group in the Department of Computer Science. Since joining the University in 2004 he has worked on a number of software projects and his current role involves setting up the SpiNNaker Neuromorphic Compute platform for the execution of large scale, biologically plausible neural networks.

Email: Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk

Andrew Smith

Andrew has come from a HPC Systems Administrator role in Daresbury, Andrew now works as a Systems Administrator in the Research Team supporting users and developing systems.

Andrew is passionate about assisting users and has a keen interest in technologies such as Slurm, Ansible and Red Hat Linux.

Email:

andrew.smith-15@manchester.ac.uk

Anthony Evans

Tony is a Research Software Engineer providing application support to researchers. In his postgraduate studies his research interests included text mining and document clustering. He has also worked in the Library providing IT Support. He has experience with Python, Matlab, R, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and Omeka. As a member of Software Carpentries he is a helper at Python, Matlab and R workshops run by Research IT and in DigiLab workshops run by the Library.

Email: anthony.evans@manchester.ac.uk

Anthony Allen

Anthony is a Business Change and Project Manager working on the Research Lifecycle Programme. His background is in marketing and communications, and he has extensive experience leading large change project at universities. He joined Manchester in 2020, having previously worked for the University of Leeds and prior to that at the University of Hull. Currently he manages RLP Project E (Networking and Collaboration) and is the BCM for Project A (Academic Timesheets).

Email: anthony.allen@manchester.ac.uk

Anja Le Blanc

Anja is a Research Software Engineer for Research IT. Currently she is leading the Research Applications Group. In her role she is helping researchers to adapt their software to run on larger data efficiently, writing bespoke code in suitable languages, and advising on applications.

After finishing her Computer Science studies she was working on a multitude of interdisciplinary projects. She also has experience in developing and running a national repository service.

Email: Anja.LeBlanc@manchester.ac.uk

Ann Gledson

Ann is a Research Software Engineer who splits her time between software engineering, data analysis, project management and training. She has conducted research since 2000 in the areas of data analysis, text mining, data visualisation and software engineering.

Ann is an advocate of established technical project management practices, including the use of agile and scrum and has co-designed and created an agile workflow training course, currently being delivered to the RSE team. She has also designed and delivered training courses, online videos and lectures relating to the production of sustainable software and open data.

She has experience in full-stack web development, building sites and web apps using Python Django, Wagtail and PHP. These have had a variety of database back-ends including SQL and NoSQL (including graph databases). She also advocates the use of object-oriented programming and Design Patterns where applicable.

Email: Ann.Gledson@manchester.ac.uk

Awais Khan

Awais is a Research Software Engineer (RSE) and works on the Applications Support team and the Mobile Development Service (MDS) in Research IT. He is a Computer Science graduate and has experience working with web technologies including: JavaScript, React, GraphQL, Elixir and Phoenix as well as software testing frameworks. MDS uses the .NET MAUI (.NET 6) and Xamarin Forms frameworks to develop cross platform mobile apps both for Android and iOS.

Email: Muhammadawais.Khan@manchester.ac.uk

Ben Pietras

Ben joined the Research IT team in 2020 as an Analyst, dividing his time between supporting the CSF and Research Data Management. Prior to this, he held a Research Associate position within the Department of Nuclear Physics at the University of Manchester, where he built and managed small-scale HTC clusters to perform Monte Carlo simulations. Before returning to the UK, Ben held a Research Associate position at the University of Santiago de Compostela, using MC simulations to guide the construction of calorimeter prototypes. He has also worked in industry as a Mass Spectrometer Development Scientist and obtained both his PhD in Nuclear structure and MRes in Bio-physics from the University of Liverpool.

Ben is an open-source enthusiast and has experience in C++, ROOT, PostgreSQL, LaTeX and Python.

Email: Ben.Pietras@manchester.ac.uk

Brian Blower

Email: Brian.blower@manchester.ac.uk

Caroline Hargreaves

Caroline is a business change manager on the Research Lifecycle Programme. She started working at The University of Manchester in 1997 for Manchester Computing and has since had roles in service support, project management, business analysis and business relationship management. Caroline works closely with the Directorate of Research and Business Engagement on projects related to administrative processes and research project due diligence.

Email: Caroline.Hargreaves@manchester.ac.uk

Caroline Martin

Caroline is a Project Manager for the Research Lifecycle Programme. She started working for the University as a Faculty of Life Sciences, IT Officer in 2008. Since then she has also worked as Digital Preservation Coordinator in the Library, Escalation Lead in the IT Support Centre, in the ITS PMO and in the ITS Service Transition team.

Email: Caroline.Martin@manchester.ac.uk

Catherine McGuire

Catherine joined Research IT in 2021 as a Research Software Engineer. She has previously worked in a number of software development and technical support roles in the public sector. She has a PhD in astronomy and astrophysics, which involved the computational modelling of massive star forming regions, and has also completed an MSc in digital and technology solutions (software engineering specialism) which focused on developing machine learning algorithms to detect hate speech on Twitter. She is currently supporting the work of the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute as part of their Digital Experimental Cancer Medicine Team, maintaining existing data visualisation software, and building prototype user interfaces for machine learning algorithms.

Email: Catherine.McGuire@manchester.ac.uk

Chris Fullerton

Chris is a Research Software Engineer who splits his time between Data Science and general project work. He studied physics and has completed a PhD in theoretical and computational physics. He has worked as a postdoctoral researcher on a range of problems in statistical physics and soft matter, from using rare event statistics to study the glass transition to developing methods of increasing the yield of self-assembly processes. More recently he worked on respiratory physiology, developing models and writing software to extract diagnostic medical information from detailed measurements of the molecules flowing in and out of a patient’s mouth.
He has experience using C/C++, MATLAB and Python and is always keen to learn about new research areas and pick up new technical skills.

Email: Christopher.Fullerton@manchester.ac.uk

Chris Grave

Having come from a Field Support Role within IT Services, Chris now works as a Systems Administrator in the Research Team. Chris is currently implementing and maintaining a local XNAT imaging platform one of several being set up throughout the UK for the purpose of dementia research.

Email: Chris.Grave@manchester.ac.uk

Chris Lam

Chris is a Research Software engineer. Before joining the University of Manchester, Chris was a research associate at the SMQB, University of Birmingham. His research was about using ‘Omic data to assess preclinical model accuracy in colorectal cancer. He was also a developer in the NHS where he contributed to the weight management service development. Chris has experience in several programming languages, game programming, and web development. He is interested in data engineering and software development.

Email: Chris.Lam@manchester.ac.uk

Christopher Paul

Chris joined the University in 1992 and has worked in a number of roles including temporary lectureships, IT Manager within the School of Mathematics and several EPS Faculty IT management roles. Currently Chris is responsible for setting up the research VM service, continuing to develop and support the Condor high throughput computing service, and contributing to the ongoing development and deployment of the managed UoM linux image.

Email: Chris.Paul@manchester.ac.uk

Constantinos Katsamis

Constantinos joined the Research IT team as an Analyst, supporting researchers in using the HPC and other technology platforms of the University. Prior to this, he contributed to the Modelling and Simulation Centre and collaborated with EDF Energy in developing computational models of the flow in sub-channels, to support the lifetime management of advanced gas cooled reactors. His background is in Mechanical Engineering with a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics and Nuclear Thermal Hydraulics, in which he performed numerical simulations of turbulent natural convection flows relevant to the cooling systems of small modular nuclear reactors. His research project involved code development in Fortran 90 and C programming languages through the implementation of his proposed cost-effective strategy into the EDF’s open-source CFD code, Code_Saturne. Constantinos developed an enthusiasm in open-source and software tools including Python, Paraview, ANSYS and LaTeX.

Email: Constantinos.Katsamis@manchester.ac.uk

Daniel Corbett

Daniel obtained a PhD in theoretical physics at the University of Cambridge in 2007. Following several research positions Oxford and Manchester he joined the Research IT team in July 2018. He works as part of the University's contribution to N8 CIR (previously N8 HPC) collaboration to work with future compute platforms.

Email: Daniel.Corbett@manchester.ac.uk

David Horrocks

David joined the university in 2001 as a Lab and IT technician and worked his way through the IT ranks and across much of the campus, performing a wide range of IT setup and support roles that evolved over time culminating in deskside support. After spending a long time on north campus, lockdown, and all that entailed, resulted in a move southward. Despite the sunnier climes and architecture of the main campus, David chose to look for greater challenges and joined the Edge Compute and Satellite Storage arm of the Research IT team in 2022.

Email: Daveh@manchester.ac.uk

David Love

Dave has a long career in doing and supporting research computing, initially starting out as an experimental nuclear physicist. He has had research support roles at Liverpool, Daresbury Laboratory (in assorted scientific and support roles), and Manchester. He has also been a maintainer for several significant free software projects. He is now in the Research team, supporting the computationally intensive research systems.

Email: David.Love@manchester.ac.uk

Donal Fellows

Donal is a research software engineer at the University of Manchester. Since 2002 he has worked supporting data-intensive research across many fields of science and humanities (from weather forecasting to solar wind physics, and from business resource planning to digital library curation), is experienced with the complexities at the intersection of research data and its metadata, and has experience adapting workflow solutions and cloud research.

Email: Donal.k.Fellows@manchester.ac.uk

Dan Hudson

Dan is a Business Change Officer supporting the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP). After completing an MSc Management degree at the University of Sheffield, he began working within the Business Change Practice of a Sheffield based IT and Change Management Consulting firm, supporting clients across the Private and Public Sectors with the delivery of a range of change initiatives. He joined the University of Manchester in May 2023, and now supports Change Managers across a number of change projects within the RLP.

daniel.hudson@manchester.ac.uk

Douglas Lowe

Doug is a Research Software Engineer. He gained his PhD in Environmental Sciences at Lancaster University in 2004, and has subsequently worked as a researcher at the University of Manchester, focusing on studying air quality around the world. He has worked extensively with the open source regional atmospheric chemical model WRF-Chem, and contributes to the development of this model. He was also involved in setting up, and now maintains, the forecast simulations used for the ManUniCast meteorology and air quality teaching portal. His main interests are in numerical software development and research workflows on HPC systems. He has experience in using Fortran, shell scripting, NCL, Python, Perl and Matlab.

Email: Douglas.Lowe@manchester.ac.uk

Emma Simpson

Emma is a Research Software Engineer. She gained her PhD in Atmospheric Science from the University of Manchester in 2017 and subsequently worked as a researcher at Manchester focusing on cloud physics and cloud aerosol interactions. She has worked with cloud and weather models as well as with observational data from both the field and laboratory. She has also developed an open source cloud parcel model to simulate cloud conditions in both the atmosphere and cloud chamber. 'She is currently working on the Greater Manchester AI Foundry project, supporting SMEs to utilize AI as part of their business, as well as the NERC Digital Solutions Hub which aims to improve access to environmental data.

Email: Emma.Simpson@manchester.ac.uk

Estefania Sanguineti

Estefania is a Research Lifecycle Programme Intern with an bachelor's degree in English Literature with Creative Writing. She works in managing data for CRMs and the implementation of the VIDATUM Timesheet System for Research Projects across university faculties.

Email: estefania.sanguineti@manchester.ac.uk

Erdem Atbas

Erdem Atbas joined as a Research Software Engineer having recently earned his PhD in Digital Signal Processing from the University. Erdem has significantly contributed to the development of immersive audio systems and medical devices throughout his career. His academic pursuits laid the groundwork for his expertise, specifically in the realms of audio systems and medical tool innovation. With a firm grasp over a multitude of coding languages, Erdem's technological prowess spans across various platforms and ecosystems. Outside of his primary research work, Erdem actively shares his insights and discoveries through written publications, further enriching the knowledge pool in his field. His deep understanding of topics like C/C++, Java, MATLAB, and many others is evident in his contributions, both in research and in collaborative projects.

Email: erdem.atbas@manchester.ac.uk

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Felix Edelsten

Felix is a graduate of the University’s Chemistry department, following which he began his career within the IT department working in both Field Support and Service Desk roles. He then went on to pursue cloud and DevOPS Consultancy roles and became manager of the SRE team for a successful Manchester based cloud consultancy. In 2023 he returned to the University, and now applies his AWS consultancy experience to help researchers get the most out of the cloud.

felix.edelsten@manchester.ac.uk

Fransisco Herrerias Azcue

Francisco is a Research Software Engineer and has a background in statistical physics. He gained his PhD in 2019 studying motion and heterogeneity in models of population dynamics. He then worked as a Lecturer at ITESM, Mexico for 3 years before joining the RSE team. His experience is primarily in C++ and Matlab, with additional experience of HPC, data analysis and presentation (R, Minitab, gnuplot, LaTeX).

Email: francisco.herreriasazcue@manchester.ac.uk

Freya Zhang

Freya Zhang is a Research IT intern who just finished her Masters degree of Educational Leadership in the University of Manchester and working for the Research Lifecycle Program (RLP) currently. She currently focusing on the CRM system, Research Risk Profiler (RRP) and capability map projects.

Email: chengcheng.zhang@manchester.ac.uk

George Leaver

As a member of the Research team, George provisions the University's computationally intensive research systems, in particular the Linux HPC clusters and GPU systems available to research groups from all faculties. This covers system administration, application support, software development (multicore and GPU) and training in the use of the University's computational systems and GPU programming.

Email: George.Leaver@manchester.ac.uk

Gerard Capes

Gerard is a Research Software Engineer, with a background in Physics and Atmospheric Science. He is an experienced Software Carpentry instructor and enjoys teaching computing skills to researchers. He is currently working on the Greater Manchester AI Foundry project, supporting SMEs to utilize AI as part of their business.

Email: Gerard.Capes@manchester.ac.uk

Gillian Sinclair

Gillian has two roles in Research IT – Research IT Relationship Manager and N8 CIR Programme Manager. In her role as Relationship Manager, she facilitates and coordinates research networks across campus and ensures that researchers are kept up to date with Research IT activities. In her role as N8 CIR Programme Manager she is responsible for the operation of N8 CIR with the support of the N8 CIR Project Directors' Group and is also responsible for outreach, communications and reporting for N8 CIR.

Email: Gillian.Sinclair@manchester.ac.uk

Goar Sanchez Sanz

Goar is the VM and EDGE Computing Lead within Research IT. He got a PhD in Computational and Theoretical chemistry by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and after several postdoctoral positions he moved into the HPC world in 2016 as the National Service Manager at the Irish Centre For High-End Computing. In 2023 he joined the Research IT were he leads storage research and VM platforms and EDGE computing and satellite storage services.

Email: goar.sanchezsanz@manchester.ac.uk

Grianne Wrigley

Grainne recently joined the N8 CIR team from the ESRC, where she was responsible for promoting administrative data research, and previously had a background in Physics. Grainne is now the N8 CIR Marketing and Communications Officer. In this role, she manages the N8 CIR social media accounts and the website, plans training and events, and monitors Bede applications.

Email: Grianne.wrigley@manchester.ac.uk

Hamzah Abbasi

Hamzah Abbasi is a Research Software Engineer on a 12-month Year in Industry placement having previously graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Sheffield. Having just completed his second year of Computer Science at the University of Manchester, Hamzah has a strong passion for software engineering and its transformative potential, with interests also in AI and Machine Learning. He has actively contributed to IT initiatives, such as developing the website for the charity NULIC using React. Hamzah also possesses valuable skills in market analysis and customer support gained through his previous projects. He also has a solid foundation in technologies such as Python, Java, JavaScript, and MySQL.

Email: hamzah.abbasi@manchester.ac.uk

Hugo Chu

Hugo joined Research IT team as a Research Software Engineer in 2023. He has extensive experience in web development, with a strong focus on web technology including JAVA, JavaScript, CSS, MySQL as well as Spring Boot framework to build web application, develop backend logic, API and design database. He is also interested in latest technology like Machine Learning and Web3.

Email: hiufung.chu@manchester.ac.uk

Huma Daud

Huma joined the University in 2003 and was at the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Safety in Mental Health (NCISH) for 19 years before joining Research IT in 2022. At NCISH, she was responsible for developing, implementing, and supporting NCISH’s database as well as supporting the network on which the database was hosted. Huma also worked closely with the NCISH Information Governance Lead on developing their security policies.

Email: huma.daud@manchester.ac.uk

Ian Hinder

Ian is a Research Software Engineer with a background in high-performance computing and numerical methods. He obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics (General Relativity) at the University of Southampton in 2005, and subsequently worked as a researcher at Penn State University and the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, colliding black holes on supercomputers. At Manchester, Ian has worked on varied projects across departments, including Lattice Boltzmann Methods for fluid dynamics on GPUs, bio-imaging data processing pipelines, epidemiological modelling, and radiotherapy dosing algorithms. Ian is interested in good software development and data analysis practices for research, and correctness and reproducibility of computational research outputs. He has a background in C/C++, CUDA, Python, MPI, OpenMP, and Mathematica.

Email: Ian.Hinder@manchester.ac.uk

Ian Leigh

Email: Ian.Leigh@manchester.ac.uk

James Sinnott

James is a Research Software Engineer with over 15 year's experience as a software developer in both industry and academia. He has a particular interest in usability and good user interface design. He is currently working in the Division of Informatics, Imaging and Data Sciences, helping to build tools to improve patient outcomes in NHS Primary Care.

Email: James.R.Sinnott@manchester.ac.uk

Jia Wu

Jia joined Research IT in 2023 as a Research Software Engineer. She has completed a PhD in Machine Learning, AI. After that, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher where she delivered machine learning software in various research domains, such as credit scoring, energy optimization and crime profiles. Jia also has many years of experience in developing and productionising machine learning products in industry. Her main programming language is Python.

Email: Jia.wu-2@manchester.ac.uk

Jonny Taylor

Jonny is a Research Software Engineer, having joined the team in 2023. He gained a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences in 2013 from the University of Manchester and subsequently worked as a researcher in various areas of atmospheric science including aerosol optical properties, cloud microphysics, and the use of deep learning on air quality chemistry datasets. He is currently supporting the development of AI fundamentals and bridging the gap between cutting-edge AI research and local businesses as part of Manchester Turing Innovation Hub. He mostly works in Python but has extensive experience in Igor Pro. In his spare time, he also likes to play with Arduinos.

Email: jonathan.taylor@manchester.ac.uk

Joshua Woodcock

Josh is a Research Software Engineer. A graduate from our University, they primarily work in Web Applications Development Service (WADS) - creating websites for researchers using Django and Wagtail. They have also developed for VR and mobile, and within data science using Python, R and Typescript. Josh is particularly interested in using new technologies to further research and sharing knowledge on how best to use them.

Email: Joshua.Woodcock@manchester.ac.uk

Justin Leung

Justin is a Research Software Engineer on a 12-month Year in Industry placement, recently completing two years of his Computer Science Course at The University of Manchester. He is currently involved as a user tester for the digitalECMT’s eTarget health web application, and working with SQL and C# in developing a more secure database for sensitive data. Moreover, he has experience with Java Spring web Application, MySQL, C/C++ and Python. He is excited and passionate to learn more Software Engineering techniques by contributing into different projects in the future.

Email: yathimjustin.leung@manchester.ac.uk

Kalu Uka

Kalu is a Business Change Officer working on the Research Lifecycle Programme. His background is in Event and Project Management having joined the University of Manchester in 2018. During his time within the University of Manchester, Kalu has worked within the Estates & Facilities team and in the Faculty of Science & Engineering as part of team responsible for managing the move of staff, students, and equipment from North Campus to Engineering Building A&B. Prior to the joining the University, Kalu worked on several events and projects for New Balance Athletic Shoes and Manchester City Council. He is currently working on Project A – Award Mobilisation and Project A2 – Research Risk Profiler.

Email: kalu.uka@manchester.ac.uk

Kamie Kitmitto

Kamie is a geospatial expert interested in the creation, value addition and management of data big and small. After finishing his PhD in Geomatics Engineering at UCL and a stint in industry, he moved to Manchester, 1991, to provide consultancy and training to the academic community on the use of geospatial technologies. Kamie is interested in the creation and utilisation of Spatial Data and their part in supporting, research, visualisation and analysis.

Email: Kamie.Kitmitto@manchester.ac.uk

Lucky Zhang

Lucky works as a Project Coordinator on the Research Lifecycle Programme for Research IT. She started working for the University of Manchester in 2013 and has since had roles in IT services support, project management, IT PMO management, distance learning and researcher development.

Email: lucky.zhang@manchester.ac.uk

Louise Lever

Louise is a Research IT Research Software Engineer, specialising in web development and data visualization and is the team lead for the Web Application Development Service (WADS). She has collaborated on many projects ranging from local academic support through to international commercial product delivery. Louise provides technical consultancy to the researcher community and has a life-long passion for the application of web delivery, computer graphics and visualization to research challenges.

Email: Louise.Lever@manchester.ac.uk

Malcom Brown

Malc joined the University in 2019 and is a Project Manager. He started his career as a fee-earner for a national law firm and transitioned into the world of IT firstly as a Business Analyst and then into Project Management. Before moving to the University Malc’s career was entirely in the private sector working in law and banking. Malc has run a number of large and small scale projects ranging from the re-branding of the UK arm of the 4th largest bank in North America to the deployment of a dictation system to lawyers. He loves working with people and technology.

Email: Malcolm.brown@manchester.ac.uk

Martin Herrerias Azcue

Martin joined IT services as Research Software Engineer in 2023. He has a background in solar energy, with experience in systems modeling, data analysis, state estimation and optimization. He is working in Application Support and Development, mainly using Matlab and [R].

Email: martin.herreriasazcue@manchester.ac.uk

Matt Holder

Matt is an intern on a 12-month placement within the Research Lifecycle Programme team. He completed a master’s degree in political theory at The University of Manchester in October 2022. He is currently assisting the team with putting together the RLP2 project portfolio and helps write copy and produce infographics for the programme.

Email: matthew.holder@manchester.ac.uk

Michelle Clayton

Michelle Clayton is the Research Data Platform Manager within Research IT. Michelle has worked at UoM for over 12 years, having recently moved over from PASM – Deskside Support where she was a manager of a large team of engineers.

Collaborating closely with colleagues in Research IT, Michelle is working on a File Storage Strategy and is currently building a team to carry out the work in the coming months. In addition to this, working on a pilot scheme whereby data will be archived over to a 3^rd party cloud computing service.

Email: Michelle.clayton@manchester.ac.uk

Martin Turner

Martin is a Research IT Relationship Manager, and is a Visiting Scientist within the Scientific Computing Division in STFC; after overlapping secondments being Visualisation Director for the Harwell Imaging Partnership (HIP) at STFC/RAL and as a Visualisation Group Leader at STFC/DL. He initially gained his PhD in the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge University, on Image Coding and now supports the full research pipeline over a broad HPC/HTC background, specialising in many Visualization Themes, Computer Graphics and Mathematical topics associated with image and signal creation, data management, analysis, processing and presentation.

Email: Martin.Turner@manchester.ac.uk

Mike Jones

Mike Jones is a Research Software Engineer working on the NERC Digital Solutions Hub. He trained as a technological and experimental particle physicist. His PhD focusses on the use of grid computing and distributed filesystems. Starting at Manchester Computing in 2001, he supported various national scientific computing services and was heavily involved European eScience initiatives and international computing standards organisations. He later joined Mimas: a libraries and humanities focussed national IT service. Here his role was to provide cross-service IT support and eventually to coordinate a complete migration of services onto the cloud, in anticipation of Jisc's acquisition of Mimas in Autumn 2014. In Jisc he continued to support the former Mimas services, as part of an expanded portfolio. In 2017 he was appointed Jisc's Head of [IT] Infrastructure. In late 2018 Mike was forced to retire on health grounds but has subsequently recovered enough to mess about on computers again. This is where you find him now, working part-time as RSE on the NERC Digital Solutions Hub.

Email: Mike.Jones@manchester.ac.uk

Nigel Green

Nigel is a Research Software Engineer, moving to the University from a background in EdTech and commercial Web Development. Nigel worked on a number of flagship online content delivery systems for global educational publishers in development, project management and technical lead roles. He's worked as a full-stack engineer and has also been 'full-stack' in terms of working with teams throughout the full project lifecycle - defining requirements, design of UI/UX and architecture, application development, management and deployment. He has also worked with educational publishers and charities to define and implement data models and enterprise content management systems. He's experienced working with PHP, Javascript, Python, HTML/CSS and is looking forward to expanding his knowledge beyond the realm of web development!

Email: nigel.green@manchester.ac.uk

Nik Harratt

Nik recently joined the University from Wolverhampton Art Gallery where he was responsible for marketing their programme of contemporary art and family-friendly exhibitions across print and social media. He also prepared exhibition graphics, artwork and publications for the service using a mixture of Adobe Creative applications. Before that he was a Digital Projects Officer for Stoke-on-Trent Museums. He has experimented with technologies such as gigapixel photography, image stacking and 3D scanning and printing. These were used to increase the service’s ability to reach new audiences and improve the way that information and interpretation was communicated. Nik is the Marketing and Communications Officer for N8 CIR.

Email: Niki.Harratt@manchester.ac.uk

Oliver Woolland

Oliver works as a Research Software Engineer and has a background in computational physics. He gained his PhD in 2017 developing Monte Carlo simulations of solid state physics. Following this he worked as a postdoctoral experimental physicist before moving into industry to develop firmware and interfaces for spectroscopy based emissions monitors. His experience is primarily in theory and software translation in C++ and Python, with additional experience of HPC, data processing and presentation (Octave/MATLAB, gnuplot, LaTeX), experiment control (VISA), and web interface development (Flask, JavaScript, Streamlit). His work lately has focused on the creation and implementation of computational workflows (Galaxy, CWL), packaging software in containers (Docker) and automating system administration tasks (Ansible).

Email: Oliver.Woolland@manchester.ac.uk

Patricia Barnby

Trish is a Research Software Engineer (RSE) and leads the Mobile Development Service (MDS) in Research IT. The service designs, builds and publishes numerous cross-platform mobile apps per year. MDS uses an Agile approach to software development working both for and with University researchers from all faculties. Trish has 20 years of industry experience both in academia and highly regulated public sector environments. She has BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, accreditation in Agile Requirements Engineering and Agile Business Analysis Practice and experience in mobile development, Java, .NET, C# technologies as well as multiple database systems.

Email: Patricia.Barnby@manchester.ac.uk

Penny Richardson

Pen joined the University in October 2001 as a helpdesk analyst for local and national HPC services. She is currently a Service and Team Lead, within the Research Team, for compute platforms, which includes the Computational Shared Facility (CSF), and associated systems such as interactive facilities, research virtual desktops/gateways, and Research Data Storage (RDS).

Email: Pen.Richardson@manchester.ac.uk

Peter Crowther

Peter has a background in Physical Chemistry and completed his PhD in Nanophysics at the University of Bristol working on network clustering and image processing algorithms for analysing experimental colloidal particle systems. Peter joined Research IT as a Research Software Engineer and worked on a wide variety of projects including writing systems for automating student coursework marking in Computer Science, helping researchers develop analysis code and data management processes in the Department of Materials, a COVID-19 modelling project and working with the WADS team to develop websites.

After 3 years as an RSE, Peter made a switch to the team and now works as a Systems Administrator with a focus on the the Research Virtual Machines and the Edge Compute service.

Email: Peter.Crowther-3@manchester.ac.uk

Phil Bradbury

Phil is a Research Software Engineer (RSE) in Research IT. Since joining the University in August 2000 working on the Faculty of Arts Help Desk he developed an interest in dynamic, database driven websites and built a number of web-based admin tools (room booking, staff annual leave/sickness booking system etc.) for staff use. He then progressed to providing bespoke systems for researchers within the Faculty and the subsequent move to Research IT broadened this scope further allowing him to build solutions for researchers across the University.

His role is currently split between the Mobile Development Service (MDS) team where he designs and builds (primarily) mobile applications to assist in the gathering, visualising and storing of research data, and also providing website/database support for a large and long-running project tracking the progress of patients with rheumatoid arthritis who have been prescribed biologic and other targeted therapies to monitor the long-term safety of those drugs. (https://www.bsrbr.org/).

Email: Phil.Bradbury@manchester.ac.uk

Richard Hoskins

Richard is an Analyst with a background in databases, development and systems administration. He joined the University in 2001, working initially as an Analyst/Programmer and subsequently as a Database Administrator overseeing the key Business Systems. He studied Mathematics at The (Victoria) University of Manchester and holds a PhD from UMIST.

Email: Richard.P.Hoskins@manchester.ac.uk

Robert Haines

Robert is the Head of Research IT and an Honorary Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science. He is one of the originators of the term 'Research Software Engineer', has served for six years as an elected representative of the UK RSE Association, chaired the first conference of Research Software Engineers in 2016, and is a founding trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering.

Robert has worked in a wide range of domains for research projects of various types and sizes from small proof-of-concept investigations up to long-term multi-partner UKRI, EU and US NSF projects. He has collaborated with diverse organisations such as utility companies, national laboratories, start-ups and public bodies, as well as other universities. He also contributes to a number of open-source software communities. His favourite programming language is Ruby.

Robert's research interests include software engineering, software sustainability, software use in open and reproducible research, software citation and credit, and career paths for software engineers and data scientists. He teaches on two course units in the Department of Computer Science: 'Software Engineering' for second year undergraduate students and 'Agile and Test-Driven Development' in the taught postgraduate programme.

Email: Robert.Haines@manchester.ac.uk

Scott Archer-Nicholls

Scott is a Research Software Engineer. He gained his Phd in Atmospheric Science from the University of Manchester in 2014 using the open source regional atmospheric chemical model WRF-Chem to investigate the impacts of smoke from forest fires in the Amazon on climate. He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Science in Boulder, Colorado, using WRF-Chem to study air quality in China. Most recently he has worked as a researcher at the University of Cambridge using and developing the UK Met Office Unified Model, focusing on improving how it simulates atmospheric chemistry. He is currently working on the NERC Digital Solution Hub project which aims to make the large quantities of environmental data stored on the NERC data archives more accessible and usable for non-academic users.

Email: Scott.archer-nicholls@manchester.ac.uk

Simon Hood

Simon is the Head of Research Platforms within Research IT. With a PhD in Mathematics from The University of Exeter, he has also worked at The University of Liverpool as a postdoc in Earth Sciences and as a lecturer in the Mathematics Department. Simon leads the team which develops and supports both on-site computational and storage research platforms and AWS/Azure-based cloud services. These include HPC (the CSF), HTC (the Condor Pool), resilient and high performance storage, the Research VM Service, the Highly Restricted Data Service (including the DSH and REDCap) and our new Edge Compute Service.

Email: Simon.Hood@manchester.ac.uk

Terry Jin

Tianyue Jin, also known as Terry, is a Research Software Engineer on a 12-month Year in Industry placement, recently completing two years of his Computer Science Course at The University of Manchester. He has a passion for web applications development, software engineering, data science, and business. Currently serving as a Web Applications Development intern, Terry thrives on the opportunity to develop innovative web applications using Django and Wagtail. With expertise in Python, Java, Spring, and SQL, Terry is eager to expand his software engineering capabilities and contribute to a variety of projects.

Email: tianyue.jin@manchester.ac.uk

Theresa Teng

Theresa is a Researcher Software Engineer and the lead for research projects for Faculty of Humanities. She has many years of experience, working on the design and development of bespoke applications for a wide range of research projects in Humanities and Medicine areas. She specialises in web applications and databases in a number of technologies and platforms. Theresa also supports researchers as a technical consultant and helps them with research grant application preparation.

Email: Theresa.Teng@manchester.ac.uk

Vasileios Vlastaras

Vasileios Vlastaras has 25 years of experience in academia and the industry as a Geospatial Software Engineer. Before joining the RSE team, he worked for ten years as a Research Associate at the SPA-Lab of the University of Manchester, where he developed various geospatial solutions. Notable projects included the European Climate Risk Typology, the GHIA extraction tool, the commute-flow web app, 'Community Planner', a neighbourhood planning support system, 'GI Explorer', a green tool for Greater Manchester. Before the University of Manchester, Vasileios worked at the University of Newcastle, developing smart geospatial services using ISO Geographic Metadata and ontologies. In Greece, he worked for the leading geospatial data producer developing geospatial digitization software and content management systems for the public sector. Over the years, he has developed computational geometry and graphics libraries using C#, Python and Javascript, among other languages. He is currently involved in the NERC Digital Solutions Programme.

Email: vasileios.vlastaras@manchester.ac.uk