EGI User Forum: Meet the bloggers

A big hello to our blogging team who are going to be reporting on the EGI User Forum 2011 live from Vilnius, Lithuania.

Oxana Smirnova is NDGF-CERN Coordinator and an Associate Professor at the High Energy Particle Physics division in Lund University, Sweden. A graduate of Moscow State University, she obtained Ph.D. in physics from Lund University. Apart of doing physics research, Oxana is heavily engaged with Grid technologies, being an active contributor to the NorduGrid's ARC middleware. 

Stuart Purdie has degrees spread between Chemistry, Physics and Material Science and currently describes himself as a Computer Scientist, with interests in decentralised and distribed computing, and human-computer interaction. Splitting his time between St Andrews and Glasgow, he works on the user support side of EGI.

Domenico Vincinanza works in DANTE's International Relations Team. He also coordinates a grid project, called ASTRA, which uses distributed computing to reconstruct ancient instruments. Domenico is both a physicist and a music composer and worked as a research associate at CERN and University of Roma Tre before joining DANTE.

 


Elizabeth Leake is the External Relations Coordinator for the US National Science Foundation’s TeraGrid. Her experience includes more than 20 years in public higher education as a technology service provider and communicator. She especially enjoys traveling abroad to explore new ways to help researchers make a high-performance connection.

 


Sara Coelho read geology in Lisbon and Mainz and for years used field work as an excuse to travel around the world. After finishing a masters in science communication, and working as a reporter for Science and Planet Earth online, Sara joined the EGI dissemination team in July 2010.

Catherine Gater has a background in Materials Science and a keen interest in talking about scientific research rather than doing any herself. Catherine is now Chief Administrative Officer and Dissemination Manager for EGI.eu in the Netherlands and is project coordinator for the e-ScienceTalk project.

Manisha Lalloo hails from a chemistry background, but is now putting her science communication skills to good use in the world of e-science. She joined the GridTalk and e-ScienceTalk teams following a stint in Brussels, helping the European Parliament promote their many events. Manisha also works as a freelance chemistry writer and in her spare time likes to dance.

 
Corentin Chevalier is e-ScienceTalk's technical wizard. He's specialized in website conception, (particularly flash, animations and dynamic systems) and doing some grid computing webcasts. He also keeps close track of new technologies and concepts, of which grid computing is a biggie.