From left to right: Sander Biesmans, Seun Adekunle, Manu Agarwal, Laurent Winckers, Chris Kuipers
Photo: Ilona Steege

The team is almost complete, a software steward will start in March 2025. In the meantime, we are dedicated to improving current levels of support and organising user assistance on a best-effort basis. Additionally, our team expanded its expertise in HPC and cloud computing through the addition of Manu Agarwal, our Research Software Engineer, a specialist in this area. Our team is working hard to ensure that researchers continue to have access to the tools and guidance they need while we build toward full operational capacity. The Research Computing Support team is thus the point of contact for all computing questions, advice and help in choosing the right infrastructure. 

Meet the team

We are happy to introduce the new members of the Research Computing Support team. With diverse expertise and experience, they are ready to enhance the support and accessibility of advanced computing resources for researchers. 

Chris Kuipers joined the team as Coordinator Research Computing Support. He holds a Master’s degree in Security and Network Engineering and has several years of experience as a Linux system engineer at the ICT Service Centre of UM.

“We’re thrilled to see the Research Computing Support team nearly complete. This team will make local and (inter)national advanced computing resources – like the DSRI and the Dutch supercomputer – far more accessible to our researchers, enabling them to focus on their work with fewer technical barriers. We look forward to welcoming our last team member in March 2025 to deliver fully on our support promise.” 

Sander Biesmans joined the team as a Scrum Master. He holds a Master’s degree in Industrial Design and has experience in managing teams and driving innovation to solve complex challenges in dynamic environments. 

Manu Agarwal joined the team as a Research Software Engineer, focusing on HPC and Cloud Support. He holds an Engineering Doctorate in Software Technology from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and is currently completing his PhD. Previously he worked at TU/e in Applied Data Science group. 

Laurent Winckers joined the team as a DevOps Engineer. He holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from UM. Laurent has worked at BiGCaT, DataHub, and most recently at KU Leuven. 

Seun Adekunle joined the team as a DevOps Engineer. He holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science and is currently completing his PhD from the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) at UM. Previously he contributed to research and education at UM within FSE. 

About the DSRI and integrated support

The Data Science Research Infrastructure is a computing cluster designed to deploy workloads for data science. Researchers can deploy workspaces based on containers such as Docker, automatically deployed to powerful servers in the cluster using Kubernetes. Users can access their workspaces or applications via just their browser, without a need for special software. 

For further information on the DSRI, please visit the DSRI website. 
Do you have questions for the Research Computing Support team? Please get in touch via Ask Your Librarian.