Welcome to this month's SSI Fellows Newsletter, which shares activities and opportunities taking place within the SSI Fellows' community. Read on for:
- Fellows' Spotlight: James Byrne (2022), Colin Sauze (2021)
- March Community Call recap
- Fellows' and related activities
- Upcoming events and calls
Fellows’ Spotlight
James Byrne, Lead Research Software Engineer - Digital Innovation Team, British Antarctic Survey
- Updates from call - I gave a review in comparison to my original 2022 presentation against what has happened with the fellowship by 2024. The original fellowship video was called "Promoting Software for Polar Research" and I spelt out the changes in my own situation between 2022-2024, as well as what I was able to deliver to this end. There's been the forming of a small digital innovation team (contained primarily RSEs) in BAS; the Software in Polar Science event showcasing and championing sustainable research software (thanks to SSI's very own Shoaib Sufi for talking as keynote and the panel); the forming of informal technical communities; various collaborations off the back of the RSE community and its positivity; and a reasonable amount of writing and outputs for the SSI (about x10). Some SSI blog posts are in the pipeline to watch out for, for more detail.
- My non-work highlight - I recently went to see Bill Bailey, which was lush. Never forget to laugh at reality and, if you're struggling, find a professional to make you laugh. To be honest, the time spent outdoors, walking and not taking in too much information, is a privilege. I managed to holiday in Ireland last year, just walking and cycling around, and it is those times that you come to treasure, much as I love what I do.
- My recommendations - I really enjoyed the film Oppenheimer, but feel that it is much more worthwhile reading the book American Prometheus, which it was based on. I really enjoyed reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Professor Shoshana Zuboff too. Radio fans should check out The Briefing Room on Radio 4, always interesting.
Colin Sauze, Senior RSE, National Oceanography Centre
- Updates from call - My fellowship plans from 2021 were to create a Carpentries course on Machine Learning. I created a course Introducing machine learning using the SciKit learn library. I’ve not had as much time to work on it as I’d like and it’s now somewhere between an alpha and beta state. In 2021 I took part in the Carpentries Lesson Development Study Group and got involved with another lesson on Deep Learning. This has now progressed to a beta stage and is in the process of being reviewed for the Carpentries Lab. I also talked about three Collaborations Workshop hackday projects I’ve been involved in and have continued to work on after Collaborations Workshop: Coding Confessions, CarpentriesOffline and the Climate Aware Task Scheduler (CATS). I recently attended the FOSDEM conference in Brussels where I presented both CATS and CarpentriesOffline.
- My non-work highlight - I always like this time of year as it starts to get lighter, warmer and all the plants and trees start to get more colourful. It makes going for a walk to see the sunset after finishing work a possibility and I can start thinking about taking my canoe out again.
- My recommendations - Environment Variables podcast, this was part of my inspiration behind the CATS project.
Community Call Recap
During the March SSI Fellows Community Call, we heard Fellows’ updates from Colin Sauze and James Byrne, and SSI Community Lead Shoaib Sufi gave an overview of the Fellows Community Building group. After the updates, we gave the other attendees a chance to ask more questions and continue the discussion. You can watch the recordings here:
Fellows’ and related activities
Magesh Chandramouli (2023 Fellow) - Visit to Shiv Nadar University, Chennai
Shiv Nadar University, Chennai (India) hosted Prof. Magesh Chandramouli, a Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) International Fellow during January 2024 for a lecture on 'Virtual Reality Applications & Beyond'. Magesh Chandramouli is a Professor of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University NW, US. The visit involved interactions with faculty members, students, and administrators. The lecture session was attended by other faculty members from the School of Engineering, SNUC and by approximately 130 students.
Dr. S. Vidhusha, Asst. Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at SNUC coordinated the visit and organized the events. Prof. Vidhusha served as a panellist on the international panel conducted as part of this Fellowship effort by Dr. Chandramouli. Dr Vidhusha made valuable contributions as a panellist for the VR HCI/UI (Human Computer Interaction). While at SNUC, Prof. Chandramouli held discussions with the Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Prof. T. Nagarajan, Prof. Santhi Natarajan, Prof. Padmavathi and Dr Subin Sahayam. The faculty participated in VR demos delivered using Headset/HMD (Head Mounted Display). Following this, further collaborative efforts towards promoting VR learning and understanding HCI/UI were done with Dr Chandramouli.
The visit, sponsored by the Fellowship from SSI, UK and hosted by SNUC, resulted in a VR Demo and lecture to promote sustainable VR practices.