Our team

We've assembled a team of talented developers with significant experience in the realm of computational chemistry.

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  Diego O. Nolasco
  Project Manager
  diegoonolasco
  Google Scholar
  Diego holds a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from the State University of São Paulo (UNESP), and worked as a postdoc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Between 2008 and 2020, he was a Professor of Physics at the Catholic University of Brasília (UCB). Now he is the Scientific Project Manager for both the Open Force Field and the Open Free Energy initiatives.
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  David W.H. Swenson
  Senior Software Scientist
  dwhswenson
  David received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, and worked as a postdoc at the University of Amsterdam and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon. Since 2014, he has been a principal developer for OpenPathSampling. When not coding, he is often creating culinary or cocktail concoctions.
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  Irfan Alibay
  Senior Research Associate / Software Scientist, University of Oxford
  IAlibay
  Google Scholar
  Irfan sits within the Biggin lab in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford. Currently working in a post split between Open Free Energy and MDAnalysis, Irfan specialises in open source software development and using various molecular dynamics based methods (primarily alchemical) to probe Protein-Ligand interactions.
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  Mike Henry
  Software Scientist
  mikemhenry
  Google Scholar
  Mike is a software scientist in the Chodera Lab at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. His time is split between Open Free Energy and maintaining and developing packages part of the OpenMM ecosystem--focusing on free energy methods and machine learning. Mike specializes in scientific developer operations and reproducible scientific workflows using container technology.
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  Richard Gowers
  Lead Software Scientist
  richardjgowers
  Richard is the project lead of Open Free Energy. After originally graduating from the University of Manchester with a degree in Chemical Engineering, he has spent his time on a variety of molecular simulation and cheminformatics roles in various locations. He has contributed to various open source projects, most notably developing the MDAnalysis package since 2013. When not at his desk he is often found walking his dog in south London.
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  Benjamin Ries
  Scientific Software Engineer / Post Doc, OpenFE & Boehringer Ingelheim
  RiesBen
  Google Scholar
  Benjamin has a Post Doc position that is split between the Open Free Energy consortium and Boehringer Ingelheim in Biberach. He studied Biochemistry and Bioinformatics at the Eberhard-Karls University Tübingen and worked on free energy calculation methods during his PhD at ETH Zurich. Now he aims at a code development that facilitates easy and efficient use of FE methods for the future. During his leisure time, Benjamin hikes, bikes, or climbs mountains in his vicinity.
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  Bobbie
  Good boy