Announcing the 2023 Software Sustainability Institute Fellows
By Rachael Ainsworth, Community Manager
Join us in welcoming the 18 new Software Sustainability Institute Fellows for 2023, plus six International Fellows—three through our International Fellowship pilot and three through a collaboration with Open Life Science!
We received over 60 applications this year from many outstanding candidates, and our new research software ambassadors represent some of the best people working in—and advocating for—better research software.
We offered Fellowships to three international applicants (applicants that are based outside the UK or without a formal affiliation with a UK-based institution or office), as part of our continuing International Fellowship pilot to help us identify and address challenges for opening and scaling up the Programme internationally in the future. The Institute has also agreed to support three additional International Fellows via sponsorship to Open Life Science (OLS) who will administer the Fellowships, establishing the first cohort of OLS/SSI Fellows!
Read more about the OLS/SSI Fellows.
The 2023 Fellows are Alex Coleman, Alex Southgate, Aman Goel, Andrea Sánchez Tapia (international, OLS Fellow), Aoife Hughes, David Young, Deborah Leem, Felicity Anderson, Gaurav Bhalerao, Georgia Aitkenhead, Kasia Banas, Kieran Didi, Lincoln Colling, Loïc Lannelongue, Magesh Chandramouli (international), Melissa Black (international, OLS Fellow), Michael Tso, Nadine Spychala, Reina Camacho Toro (international, OLS Fellow), Samuel Forbes, Sarah Jaffa, Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal (international), Stephen Klusza (international), and Ugur Yilmaz.
The new cohort includes representatives from seven of the research fields in the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) principle subject codes, including Biological Sciences, Computer Sciences, Education, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences, Subjects Allied to Medicine, and Combined/general subject unspecified. The 2023 cohort also includes non-researchers and members of the Research Software Engineering community. Their work is supported by a variety of funders including EPSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, STFC, and local institutional funding.
The 2023 Fellows come from 13 research and technology institutions across the UK, including Cardiff University, Durham University, Open Life Science, Queen's University Belfast, Square Kilometre Array Observatory, The Alan Turing Institute, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, University College London, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Leeds, University of Oxford, and the University of Sussex.
The International Fellows come from Clayton State University, CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), MetaDocencia, Open Life Science, Purdue University, and the RSE Asia Association.
Many of the Fellows are at an early career stage - they are Research Assistants/Associates, Data Scientists, Lecturers and Research Software Engineers. We also have six career Phase 1 Fellows (e.g. Doctoral students), two career Phase 3 Fellows (e.g. Programme Director and DevOps Engineer), and one career Phase 4 Fellow (Professor)—learn more about the different career stages and what they mean.
Our applicants came from many different backgrounds and groups, and half of the Fellows identify as women or non-binary. 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 social media handles and other details so you can follow their work and make contact if you share a common interest. You can also meet many of our Fellows at Collaborations Workshop 2023 taking place 2–4 May (registration will open tomorrow!).
You can find further information about the Fellowship Programme here and sign up to this mailing list to receive updates about the programme such as when applications for the next cohort open.
Congratulations again and welcome to the 2023 cohort!