DrDiego Alonso Alvarez

Dr Diego Alonso Alvarez is the Head of Research Software Engineering of the central RSE Team at Imperial College London, part of the Research Computing Service. He joined the team in 2018 as an RSE, and has led it since the end of 2021.

Diego studied Physical Sciences and then specialised in semiconductor quantum nanostructures during his PhD. During his postdoctoral research at Heriot Watt University (Edinburgh) first, and then at Imperial College London, his interests moved to novel solar energy concepts and solar cells. It is while performing this research that he developed a keen interest in software, which ended up covering all aspects of this work, from modelling and simulation of the solar cells, data analysis, and even data acquisition by automating the lab equipment.

Diego is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, a member of the Society of Research Software Engineering, and a certified Carpentries Instructor, and is enthusiastic about promoting the benefits of good coding practices to other researchers. His technical expertise is centred around software sustainability and accessibility, especially in relation to the development of graphical user interfaces for research software, although lately his activities have focused more on team management and leadership.