Presenter

Alys Brett is Head of the Software Development Group at UKAEA, working at the UK’s national fusion research laboratory in Culham. She has a background in Physics and gained some research experience before moving on to develop software for Oxford University. She joined UKAEA 10 years ago to work on experimental data systems for the JET experiment – the largest fusion reactor in the world. The majority of her group are research software engineers who provide data services for JET and collaborate on code with scientists. Alys has a remit to improve how software is developed within UKAEA and chairs an internal working group with representatives covering many types of software work - from plasma modelling to robotic control systems. She became involved in the wider research software community through a fellowship with the Software Sustainability Institute and is currently joint-chair of the UK Research Software Engineers Association.