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RSE Working Group

THE RSE Working Group is a group of volunteers who organise an RSE community at ETH Zurich.

We meet every two weeks on Zoom. If you are interested in helping us or want to contribute to the community in any way, please email .

Who are we?

Franziska

My name is Franziska Menti and I work part time as science support in the exoplanets and habitability group at ETH Zurich. My main project is to design and implement the LIFE (Large Interferometer For Exoplanets) target database. In my free time, I like interacting with animals, playing (board) games and helping our society become more inclusive.

More about Franziska

My background I studied physics at ETH Zurich. After finishing my master there I am now employed through Workaut which offers a program for inclusion of autistic people in workplaces. While I disliked programming during my studies since I have been able to apply it to astrophysics I started enjoying it more and more.

RSE I first heard the term RSE at the kick off event of the RSE community. There I realised that all those years I have actually been a research software engineer without knowing it. My favourite part about RSE is the combination of fascinating research topic with nice structure through code.

Jaime

Hi! My name’s Jaime Cardozo and I work as software engineer at ETH Library Zurich. I started my professional career in IT with an apprenticeship as application developer almost fifteen years ago and been around since then, always staying curious!

More about Jaime

My motivation

I am part of this community to deepen my knowledge and also connect to other people working in research, supporting each other with the great challenges we face!

Now My team and I care about digital long-term preservation and are responsible for the data archive at ETH. I design middleware applications and data pipelines to ensure smooth travel of various assets entering the digital chronicles.

Roman

My name is Roman Wixinger and I work as a Data Scientist at Ergon Informatik. I am an active member of the RSE@ETHZ community because I believe that software engineering is the missing piece to effective (data) science.

More about Roman

My background My journey started as a physics student at ETH Zurich, where I discovered my passion for solving problems with software. During my studies, I had the chance to write software at various research institutes and companies.

My motivation During a particular experience at the University of Tokyo, I realised that software engineering craftsmanship is crucial for effective and reproducible research. With a few changes in the experimental workflow, we could automate the data taking and analysis, saving countless hours and enhancing reproducibility. This is why I believe that it is our duty as RSE community to spread awareness about software engineering best practices and invest in teaching.

Uwe

My name is Uwe Schmitt and I work as a Senior RSE at the Scientific IT Services of ETH Zurich (https://sis.id.ethz.ch). In this position I develop software for research and help researchers in many ways with IT-related tasks. I also enjoy teaching courses from time to time which helps me to stay in touch with researchers and which I also like as a change from the work routine.

More about Uwe

My background I studied mathematics in Saarbrücken, Germany, and have a PhD in applied mathematics. I have always enjoyed the programming part of my research, because it can turn theoretical considerations into something of practical use. I started to learn about software engineering practices after my PhD because I wondered how programmers could write and maintain robust programs with 10,000 lines of code and more.

My favourite parts of being an RSE I really enjoy working on many different projects in many different scientific areas. Seeing that my work has a direct impact on the researchers I’m working with is also very rewarding and motivating. I also enjoy the flat hierarchy and flexibility of my working environment.

My least favourite parts of being an RSE Working on many projects at the same time can be tiring and stressful. As many of my projects are not very big, I often work as a one-person team.