By Rachael Ainsworth, Software Sustainability Institute

Join us in welcoming the 18 new Software Sustainability Institute Fellows for 2020! We are very happy to have received around 60 applications this year from so many excellent candidates, and our new research software ambassadors represent some of the best people working in – and advocating for – better research software.

The 2020 Fellows are: Alex Clarke, Anna-Maria Sichani, Diego Alonso Álvarez, Edward Palmer, Emily Bell, Emily Lewis, Emma Rand, Jez Cope, Jon Massey, Leonardo Uieda, Pablo Bernabeu, Phil McAleer, Philipp Boersch-Supan, Sarah Gibson, Tarek Allam, Will Hulme, Will Furnass and Yasir Noori.

The new cohort includes representatives from ten of the research fields in the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) principal subject codes, including Medicine and dentistry; Biological sciences; Physical sciences; Mathematical sciences; Engineering and technology; Computer science; Mass communications and documentation; Historical and philosophical studies; and for the first time Veterinary science, Agriculture and related subjects. The 2020 cohort also includes members of the Research Software Engineering community. Their work is supported by a variety of funders including AHRC, BBSRC, EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC and local institutional funding.

The 2020 Fellows come from 16 research institutions across the UK, including the British Trust for Ornithology, Imperial College London, Lancaster University, Loughborough University, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, The Alan Turing Institute, The British Library, University College London (2), University of Bristol, University of Glasgow, University of Liverpool, University of Manchester (2), University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Sussex and University of York.

As in previous years, more than half of the Fellows are early career stage – they are research assistants/associates, first grant holders, lecturers and Research Software Engineers. However, we also have five junior career and three mid/recognised career Fellows (you can see more about the different career stages and what they mean here). Our applicants came from many different backgrounds and groups, and five out of the 18 Fellows are women. The charts below provide more information about the distribution of applicants and Fellows based on these demographics.

Please take a look at our Fellows’ profiles! Many of them have provided Twitter handles and other details so you can follow their work and make contact if you share a common interest. If you’d like to meet them in person, our 2020 Fellows will be attending the Institute’s Collaborations Workshop 2020 (CW20) in Belfast from 31 March - 2 April 2020. For more information about the workshop and to register, please visit the CW20 webpage.

Congratulations and welcome again to the 2020 cohort!