Fellow Detail

Software Engineering, Bioinformatics, Computational Neuroscience, Teaching and Learning the Carpentries Way. I'm probably interested in anything that I can write a computer program for - especially if it is in Java! If I can 3D print, add a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino and some extra electronic components to the recipe, I'm close to thinking I'm in heaven.

I am a senior research software engineer at Newcastle University. I spend half my time on a research project and the other half on organising and instructing on Carpentries Workshops.

Born and bred in South Africa, I did my undergraduate degree, a BA with African Languages and Sociology, at the North West University in Potchefstroom. However my interests were in computing and after two years in the military and another two years teaching secondary college, I started working as a self-taught programmer in the financial markets while pursuing a Diploma in Data Metrics with computer science.

I immigrated to the UK working as a full stack developer, first in online gaming and then in traffic control. During this time I also completed a Masters in Computing for Commerce and Industry with the Open University.

In 2009 I decided to go back to university fulltime and completed a Masters in Bioinformatics and Computational Systems Biology followed by a PhD in Computational Neuroscience.

Since then I worked as a Bioinformatician, then a Senior Research Associate before joining Newcastle University’s newly established Research Software Engineering Team in 2019 as a Senior RSE.