Meet the team
If you would like more information or if you have a query about using any of our services, visit our website where you will find direct contact information for each service. This will ensure your enquiry is dealt with by the correct team as soon as possible.
Abby Gavin
Abby is a Research Software Engineer who joined the team in 2023. Since graduating with a masters in Maths and Computer Science, she worked at a consulting company providing software expertise to multinational companies. She has skills in C#, Blazor and JavaScript (including React/Redux). After joining the department she has been working with a research group to move to a new tech stack (Blazor) and improve security features.
Email:abby.gavin@manchester.ac.uk
Abhijit Ghosh
Abhijit Ghosh has a strong foundation in HPC system administration, application and user support and network administration. Abhijit has been managing and maintaining HPC clusters and IT infrastructure for 11 years before joining the Research IT team of the University as Infrastructure Analyst. He has extensive experience of managing email server, web server, DNS server, VPN, local area and wide area network, including configuration and maintenance of switches, routers and firewalls. Abhijit primarily looks after administration of Linux HPC clusters and provides application and user support.
Email: abhijit.ghosh@manchester.ac.uk
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 Gait
Andrew is a Research Software Engineer who joined Research IT in 2023, having previously worked in a variety of software-related post-doctoral research roles across the University of Manchester since 2007, including multi-physics simulations, medical image segmentation and analysis, and neuromorphic computing and brain simulations as part of the Human Brain Project sponsored work on the SpiNNaker machine in Computer Science. This has involved working across different multi-disciplinary teams and in multiple different programming languages including C, Python, C++, Fortran and Matlab.
Email: andrew.gait@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 Research Software Engineer and works both on projects and on project management within the Research Software Engineering team. Since joining the University in 2004 he has worked on several software projects, from video conferencing and recording software, through text mining software and services for the National Centre for Text Mining, and, most recently, the software that executes on the SpiNNaker Neuromorphic Compute platform for the execution of large scale, biologically plausible neural networks as part of the Human Brain Project, along with services that integrate the platform with other computing systems.
Email: Andrew.Rowley@manchester.ac.uk
Annie Zheng
Annie is a Research Software Engineer in Research IT. She was previously a Year in Industry student on the RSE team in 2022 and has rejoined the RSE team in 2024 after graduating with a degree in Computer Science. She has experience in web and mobile development.
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
Benito Matischen
Benito is a Research Software Engineer who rejoined Research IT in 2024 after graduating in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University, having previously joined as a Year in Industry student. Benito has experience working with web technologies including Python/Django, JavaScript, Wagtail and is always eager to pick up new knowledge and technical skills. More recently, Benito has worked on projects involving the application of AI and large language models.
benito.matischen@manchester.ac.uk
Bharti Gupta
Bharti is a Business Change Manager and Project Manager for the Research Lifecycle Programme with a Post Graduate degree in Computer Sciences, whose first stint at the University of Manchester was in 2008 as a software engineer at Mimas which was a nationally designated academic data centre based at the Faculty of Humanities and provided strong technical expertise on EuroPMC (Life Sciences) and Landmap (Geospatial) services for few years.
Post that she joined the private sector and worked up her career as IT project manager and later business transformation manager across various industries such as Banking, Asset Management, Telecom and Oil & Gas. She has vast experience in helping global businesses design and implement FinTech-led Strategies and deliver Transformational Change to improve revenue, streamline operations, and reduce risk through strong governance.
She has proven skills in engaging with global delivery partners, heading end-to-end programme/project activities through robust communication model and setup project and change management best practices by applying globally accepted IT and business management principles and standards.
Email: bharti.gupta@manchester.ac.uk
Brian Blower
Brian joined the University in 2005, providing Linux IT support for the Imaging Science Group within the faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health. He is currently working as a Systems Administrator for the Research team. He has previously implemented a range of projects including large capacity work-group storage systems, enterprise backup solutions, both Windows and Linux HPC clusters and has been responsible for supporting multiple server rooms. Brian’s last assignment saw him implement and develop the Trustworthy Research Environment, co-ordinating building work with the installation of the necessary utilities and environment to deploy an OpenStack cluster for secure data research.
Email: Brian.blower@manchester.ac.uk
Callam Barnes
Callam is a Project Manager on the Research Lifecycle Programme. He joined the University in February 2024, having previously worked as a project manager for a digital agency who specialised in bespoke software and website development. Prior to that Callam has managed various programmes and projects in the Voluntary Community Faith and Social Enterprise (VCFSE) Sector mainly focused on skills development and young people.
Email: callam.barnes@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 has previously worked on data analysis, data visualisation and machine learning projects at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute, and is currently working on projects with Research IT's Web Application Development Service.
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
Chris joined the Research IT team in 2017 as a Systems Administrator. His areas of expertise include Linux system administration, High-Performance Computing (HPC), and Azure cloud services, among others.
Since joining Research IT, he has been embedded with various research groups throughout the university, playing a crucial role in developing tailored IT solutions to meet their specific research needs. This hands-on experience allowed him to gain valuable insights into the diverse requirements of academic research projects.
Currently, Chris's primary focus has shifted to supporting the University's HPC facilities, ensuring that the HPC infrastructure operates efficiently and enabling researchers to tackle complex computational challenges and advance their work across multiple disciplines.
Carri King
Carri is a Research Software Engineer (RSE) who joined Research IT in autumn 2024. Prior to that they worked in industry within small-to-medium sized enterprises wearing a variety of software engineering and product development related hats, often several at once, including Lead Software Developer, Product Owner and Software Architect.
During their time in industry, they most recently worked on the large-scale simulation of crowds and vehicles in open-world computer games, and prior to that they worked on high-performance industrial visualisation, particularly XR and the management of massive industrial and scientific datasets. They worked closely with engineers and scientists in defence companies such as Rolls Royce, BAE, and Raytheon, industrial manufacturing such as Lam Research and Siemens, and government research such as the US Department of Energy and the British Geological Survey. It was working with the BGS and other academic partners which inspired Carri to seek to become an RSE.
They are particularly skilled in C++ but over the years have delivered high-quality solutions using a wide variety of technologies including CUDA, OpenGL, Python, Kubernetes and WebAssembly. Carri also has a breadth of skills in software engineering management, product management, and agile methodologies. Their passion is developing useful and innovative software which delights and empowers users.
Chris Lam
Chris is a Research Software Engineer. Previously, he worked as a software engineer at ESRI in 2024 and a Research Software Engineer at The University of Manchester from 2022 to 2023, focusing on GIS application development. His roles have spanned various research and development positions, including Junior Developer at NHS and Research Associate at the University of Birmingham, where he worked on data visualization and ASP.Net web application development. His experience includes working with multiple programming languages such as C/C++, C#, Python, and JavaScript, and collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams on projects ranging from cancer research to economic modelling. He interests in game development, application development, and scripting engine.
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. Since Nov 2023, Chris has become the team lead on the Research Infrastructure GPFS storage platform.
Email: Chris.Paul@manchester.ac.uk
Connor Main
Connor is a Systems Administrator who joined Research IT in 2023, after several years working for commercial hosting provider and development agency. He utilises his background in cloud computing in the commercial space to support AWS architecture for University projects.
Email: connor.main@manchester.ac.uk
Chandima Samarakoon
Chandima is a Research Software Engineer with a Master's degree in Computer Science and a background in software development and natural language processing (NLP). She has experience working in various technical roles, including as a Full stack Software Engineer and a Frontend developer.
Her expertise spans a wide range of technologies including Java, Python, JavaScript, React, Node.js, and MongoDB. Additionally, she has advanced skills in NLP and large language models (LLMs). Chandima has contributed to significant projects such as optimizing machine learning pipelines, enhancing financial market software, and conducting research on the natural language processing domain.
chandimasamarakoon.samankumari@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 wide experience from a long career doing and supporting research computing, initially as an experimental nuclear physicist. He had previous hardware/software research support roles at Liverpool, Daresbury Laboratory (in assorted scientific and support roles), and Manchester, and has maintained several significant free software projects. Despite explicitly doing research software engineering before anyone he knows, Dave is now in the Platforms group. He has particular interests in system management and security.
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 joined Research IT in 2019 as a Research Software Engineer. He has a PhD in Environmental Sciences and, before joining the department, 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 maintains the [ManUniCast](http://manunicast.seaes.manchester.ac.uk/) meteorology and air quality teaching portal. Since joining he has worked on projects ranging from environment data science through to bioinformatics workflows and software packaging. His main interests are in research workflows and numerical software development. He has experience in developing software in Python and Fortran; writing scientific workflows in shell script, and Common Workflow Language (CWL); and packaging software using Conda and Docker.
Email: Douglas.Lowe@manchester.ac.uk
Emily Dewhurst
Emily is a Business Change Officer working on the Research Lifecycle Programme. Joining the University in 2018, Emily has worked within the Humanities Research Support team and as part of the team responsible for managing the roll out of Academic access to the project costing tool, BlackDackel. Prior to the joining the University, Emily worked within Research Support at the London School of Economics. She is currently working on Project A – Award Mobilisation.
Email: emily.dewhurst@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. As an RSE she has worked on the Greater Manchester AI Foundry project, supporting SMEs to utilize AI as part of their business. She is currently working on the NERC Digital Solutions Hub which aims to improve access to environmental data. Emma splits her time between project and people management and technical work on the Digital Solutions Hub project.
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
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.
Email: felix.edelsten@manchester.ac.uk
Francesca Maresca
Francesca is an experienced Project Manager for the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP), with a strong background in physical and mathematical modeling. She earned an M.Sc. in High-Performance Computing and a Ph.D. in Physics from Trinity College Dublin, followed by a PostDoc at the University of Utah in USA.
In 2006, Francesca moved to the UK and applied her expertise in physical modeling and simulation in R&D roles across industries such as aerospace, healthcare, and transport. In 2017, she transitioned to project management at a consultancy firm, where she successfully led data analytics and software engineering projects for a wide range of clients.
With significant experience in both Agile and Waterfall methodologies, Francesca holds APMP and AgilePM certifications, demonstrating her ability to manage complex projects in dynamic environments.
francesca.maresca@manchester.ac.uk
Fransisco Herrerias Azcue
Francisco is a Research Software Engineer with a background in statistical physics. He completed 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 programming with Python, MATLAB, and C++, as well as data analysis and presentation using, for example, R, Minitab, gnuplot, geogebra or LaTeX. He is really keen on containerizing software (Docker) and automating tasks (GitHub Actions, Ansible, MQTT), and has also worked with HPC facilities and web interface development (Flask, Rails, Shiny).
francisco.herreriasazcue@manchester.ac.uk
Gail Millin-Chalabi
Gail is a Project Manager for the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP) leading on the Pure Migration to AWS Cloud (Phase 1 & 2) and is the Skills and Workforce Development Theme Lead for RLP. She is Co-I Researcher in the Geography department on the NERC funded Towards a UK Fire Danger Rating System covering Earth Observation techniques to map UK fuels, wildfire threat analysis and assessment of national fire statistics.
Gail has over 20 years of experience using geospatial technologies. In 2009 Gail began a PhD P/T on the Characterisation of Burn Scars using Multitemporal and Multisensor Synthetic Aperture Radar in the Peak District National Park. During this time, she worked as a Geospatial Development Officer, e-Learning Technologist and a Lecturer in Remote Sensing. As GIS and Remote Sensing Technical Specialist for SEED (2016 - 2023) she led the development of the cloud-based Esri ArcGIS Online Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) to support teaching and research across the institution. She currently leads the CaDiR GIS, Mapping and Earth Observation group with the aim to grow the university geospatial community and its collaborations.
Email: Gail.Millin-Chalabi@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, working with observational data from field experiments, and modelling laboratory chamber experiments. He is an experienced Software Carpentry instructor who enjoys teaching good software development practices to researchers and is always keen to improve his own technical skills. He has recently worked on projects which have involved speeding up code using parallelisation techniques, supporting SMEs to utilize AI (machine learning) as part of their business, automating the marking of student coursework, and developing analysis code for materials science lab data.
Email: Gerard.Capes@manchester.ac.uk
Gillian Sinclair
Gillian is a Relationship Manager for Research IT. As part of her role she facilitates and coordinates research networks across the University and ensures that the research community is kept up to date with Research IT services and activities. Previously she was the Programme Manager for N8 CIR, a Tier 2 HPC regional computing service for over 10 years.
Email: Gillian.Sinclair@manchester.ac.uk
Goar Sanchez Sanz
Goar is the 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 where he leads storage research and EDGE computing and satellite storage services.
Email: goar.sanchezsanz@manchester.ac.uk
Godspower Ekadi
Godspower is a Functional Analyst on the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP) working majorly on the Research Risk Profiler tool which is built in Qualtrics. His background is in Software Development. He joined the university in 2022 as a Software Engineer on the Digital Health Software Team in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health before moving to RLP in 2023.
Prior to joining the University, Godspower has taken on Software Engineer and Web Project Manager Roles within Industry. He holds an MSc. in Mobile Computing and Communications Networks from the University of Leeds and a BSc in Computer Science from Covenant University, Nigeria.
Email: godspower.ekadi@manchester.ac.uk
Grainne 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
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
Harvey O'connell
Harvey is a Business Change Officer working on the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP). Having joined the team recently, Harvey has spent the last five years working at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in several roles. Most recently he worked as part of NIHR’s coordinating centre, supporting the delivery of national Department of Health and Social Care initiatives. Prior to this, Harvey worked at NIHR’s Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Research Network. Here he managed the performance of eight clinical research portfolios. With a degree in project management and experience delivering projects in the research environment, Harvey now turns his focus towards supporting RLP’s change projects.
harvey.oconnell@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
Jacqueline Watson
Jacqueline joined the University in 2024 as a Project Coordinator for the Research Lifecycle Programme. She came from the teaching profession, leaving as Head of Chemistry, having taught Science in a secondary school since 2007. Prior to this Jacqueline had worked in the food industry in Regulatory Affairs.
Email: jacqueline.watson@manchester.ac.uk
James Bird
James joined the Research Lifecycle Programme (RLP) as a Technical Specialist in December 2023. He’s tasked with centrally implementing at least one digital notebook (also known as an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), when specialised) along with integrated sample inventories, where appropriate, to fit the needs of researchers across the breadth of the University. Having been awarded his Doctorate in the Science and Technology of Fusion Energy in April 2024, also at the University, he’s keen to improve the researcher experience given his own first-hand experience. In previous lives, James has been a teaching assistant, a gardener, a nanomaterials research scientist (in industry), and a chemist.
James Sinnott
James is a Research Software Engineer with over 15 year's experience as a software developer in both industry and academia. He specialises in developing web applications and has a particular interest in usability and good user interface design.
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
John Tollitt
John is an Infrastructure Analyst in Research IT. He has worked in various technology roles for over 20 years, mostly in the private sector. He started in service desk and persued infrastructure and project roles. He has experience supporting VM platforms, Storage, Azure cloud, networking and security as well as Microsoft server and edge systems.
Email: john.tollitt@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
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
Lasse Schmieding
Lasse is a Research Software Engineer, joining the team in September 2024. Previously he completed a PhD in Mathematics at the University of York, specializing in Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetimes. He then worked as a Software Developer maintaining commercial enterprise solutions used by retailers to make data-driven decisions about their product assortments. He has experience building rich web applications using Java.
lasse.schmieding@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
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
Matt McGill
Matt is a Project Coordinator for the Research Lifecycle Programme. He joined the programme in 2023 and previously worked in the games industry as a Game Designer, Narrative Designer and Producer. He is currently working closely with both the RLP and the B.15 Modelmaking Workshop on various projects.
Email: matthew.mcgill@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
Paul Mulherin
Paul began work at the University in 1992 as an apprentice Electronics Technician at UMIST. He quickly settled into supporting University staff and students' computing needs in various roles in the Dept. of EEE, then FSE and finally centrally in Deskside Support. He also spent a 2 year secondment working within a biological research group as a Research Data Manager where he contributed to several research papers and also learned Python and improved his skills in VBA. In a wish to further enhance his IT skills Paul left Deskside Support to join Research IT February 2023. Since then he has worked supporting several systems and services including the Research Linux VM infrastructure and a bespoke Nvidia Omniverse platform.
Email: paul.mulherin@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 Senior Research Software Engineer (RSE) in Research IT, and forms part of the leadership team within the Research Software Engineering section.
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 administrative tools (room and resource booking systems, staff annual leave/sickness booking application etc.) for staff use. He progressed to providing bespoke web applications for researchers within the faculty and the subsequent move to Research IT broadened this scope further to encompass the University as a whole.
His current role is based in the Mobile Development Service (MDS) team where; as the Technical Architect; he designs and builds mobile applications for both Android and iOS devices to assist in the gathering, visualising and storing of research data, and he also provides technical support and code review for the other staff in the team.
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 (Rob) is Director of Research IT, Director of the Research Lifecycle Programme, 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 Software Engineering to second year undergraduate students In the Department of Computer Science.
Email: Robert.Haines@manchester.ac.uk
Rogers Tuyisenge
After completing an MSc computing degree at the University of Liverpool in 2007, he began working with the Carphone Warehouse supporting in-store IT systems like EPOS Printers and among others for over 3 years.
Roger then joined the University of Manchester in 2011 working on both the shared service desk and desk side support mainly in FSE in various roles as well as supporting Start of year IT activities & weekly VIP support. Seeking a new challenge, he joined Research IT in 2022 as part of the Edge computing and satellite storage services as a Systems Administrator.
Email: Rogers@manchester.ac.uk
Rohan Denton
Rohan joined the Research Lifecycle Programme in January 2024 as a Business Change Officer and supports Change Managers across number of projects within the RLP.
Prior to joining the programme, he spent 18 months in the Universities Strategic Change Office (SCO). In his time in the SCO, Rohan worked as a Business Change Coordinator on the External Calling (Teams Voice) Project. In this role, he successfully supported the transition of staff across the University from their traditional landline phones to Teams Voice.
Before working for the University, Rohan spent 4 years studying at Manchester, completing both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the School of Social Science.
Email: rohan.denton@manchester.ac.uk
Sarah Jaffa
Sarah joined the team in 2024, having previously worked as a Research Software Engineer at UCL in the Centre for Advanced Research Computing. She obtained a PhD in Astrophysics from Cardiff University and undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Hertfordshire. She has expertise in image processing, hydrodynamic simulations, data analysis and visualisation, and high-performance computing. She has undertaken projects in Python, C, C++, Fortran and IDL and enjoys teaching researchers about modern research computing tools and practices. She is a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute and a certified Carpentries Instructor.
Email: sarah.jaffa@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
Theresa Teng
Theresa is a Researcher Software Engineer. 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.
Toni Price
Toni joined the team as a Research Software Engineer in 2024 with a background in Statistics and over 15 years of Industry-based software development experience. She has worked in Treasury Management, Pharmaceuticals and the Internet sector, writing enterprise applications in C++ and Java. She also spent some time exploring web application development with Ruby on Rails and writing Python applications on Linux before completing a PhD in the Centre for Multilevel Modelling at the University of Bristol (where she worked on a method to improve computational speed of simulation-based multilevel sample size determination). During this time she found an enthusiasm for R which continues to grow. Toni has a special interest in usability, reproducible research and all things data visualisation.
Traceyanne Sinclair
Traceyanne is a Business Change Manager working on the Research Lifecycle Programme and has extensive experience leading large change projects. She has worked at the University of Manchester since 2008, with over ten years’ experience in focusing on research support areas. She is currently leading the change for pre and post award activities, supporting PS and researchers alike.
Email: traceyanne.sinclair@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.
