Dr Jonathan Cooper

Head of Research Software Engineering

ARC Research Software Development Group

UCL Centre for Advanced Research Computing

Joined UCL: 21st Nov 2016

Research summary

I lead Research Software Engineering work at UCL, supporting researchers in developing high quality software to improve the reproducibility, sustainability and impact of their research. My research in this space is focused on designing the career structures and ways of working to allow these and other research technology professionals to flourish, and so maximise the effectiveness and impact of research, both at UCL and internationally.

Previously I have worked on the application of software engineering to computational biology, mostly using domain-specific languages to describe mathematical models of biology, and developing the tools required to make these more usable for researchers.

Education

University of Oxford: Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 2009
University of Oxford: First Degree, Bachelor of Arts | 2004

Biography

I took over leadership of UCL's Research Software Development Group from its founder in 2018, having joined in 2016 after 12 years as a researcher at the University of Oxford. There I was joint lead developer for the Chaste computational biology software, and creator of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Web Lab. I also set up and led a cross-University grass roots network for Research Software Developers at Oxford, was co-Director of the Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre, and lectured XML for Oxford's part-time MSc in Software Engineering.

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