Marion Weinzierl is a Senior Research Software
Engineer (RSE) with Advanced Research Computing
(ARC) at Durham University, much of her work here
has been refactoring and optimising code, including
Fortran, C++, Python, MATLAB and Bash.
Marion has experience of scientific software
development in academia and industry, is an active
member of the RSE community, and is N8 CIR’s RSE
Theme Leader.
Marion Weinzierl is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Management and Marketing at
Durham University’s Business School and
a member of ARC.
She studies and researches tech inequalities and
professional roles in tech organisations and is
the author of ‘The Culture of Women in Tech, An
Unsuitable Job for a Woman
Can you give us an overview of the project
In November 2021 the N8 Centre of Excellence in Computationally Intensive Research was officially recognised as a chapter of the Women in HPC (WHPC) movement. It was a process started by N8 CIR’s first RSE Theme Leader Kirsty Pringle. Becoming a chapter of WHPC will help N8 CIR to focus on a range of issues affecting women and under-represented groups across the N8 and wider high-performance computing (HPC) environment:- Raise the profile of the issue of gender balance and inclusivity in N8 CIR, and with the academics we work with.
- Understand issues limiting the uptake of training places by women
- Examine issues regarding lack of women in senior roles across the HPC environment
- Raise the profile of people from other under-represented groups within the HPC environment.
How will you address these issues?
Each issue will require a different approach. We’ve already started to gather information about workshop attendance to give us a baseline from which we can measure improvement. We will also organise workshops for some of those under-represented groups, for example, an all-female led HPC training workshop. This will help to create a safe shared space where attendees can practice and build new professional networks. N8 CIR is also fortunate to have Marion Weinzierl and Emma Barnes (University of York), both of whom are recognised as trailblazers in the wider HPC community. We already have some results from our working groups, one example being the preparation of a recruitment checklist.
Can you tell us a little bit more about the checklist?
We’ve worked to identify some of the key reasons that women and people from minority groups don’t apply for roles, before outlining steps that address them and explain why these might work. Download it at: https://n8cir.org.uk/news/diversity-checklist/