RSE Pioneers

Documenting the contributions of research software engineering pioneers.

RSE pioneers

RSE pioneers are the early adopters of research software in the research process, fundamentally aiding the community by providing access to the software. By providing this access and the developed research software as an infrastructure, RSE pioneers fundamentally advanced not only their own scientific pursuits, but also enabled a multitude of indirect research achievements by other researchers using the developed tools.

The aim of this project

Research software engineers have historically remained in the background, investing substantial time in developing and maintaining research software. With this series, we want to highlight the contributions of those researchers and shed light onto successes and hurdles in the history of research software engineering.

What is Research Software Engineering?

Research Software Engineering (RSE) is a relatively new field that combines domain research with software development skills. Research software engineers develop, maintain, and extend the software that underpins research across all disciplines. In some disciplines, research software engineering has emerged earlier than in others - the research software engineers driving the innovation in those fields are the pioneers in this series.

The pioneers

Our featured pioneers are researchers who:

  • Developed fundamental algorithms and methods
  • Created impactful research software packages used by many other researchers in their field
  • Made the decisions to provide open source access to their research software
  • Built communities around their software
  • Influenced how research software is developed and maintained today

Topics covered

This project was initiated to capture the stories and wisdom of these early RSE pioneers. The interviews aim to provide insights into:

  • The evolution of computational research
  • Early challenges in research software development
  • The transition from lab code to community open source software
  • Building and maintaining research software communities
  • Careers in research software engineering
  • The future of research software engineering