Behind First Light Fusion is a team of 80 talented scientists, engineers, technicians, operations, and business experts. Our team is from a wide range of backgrounds, but is united by a passion for realising fusion energy at scale.
In the latest instalment of our ‘Meet the Team’ series, we hear from Jon Herring, Ciaran Wilson and Peter Grandi who tell us about the critical roles they play here at First Light Fusion, as well as the joys of miniature painting.
What is your role at First Light Fusion?
Jon: I’m the Software & HPC Engineering Group Lead. We’re a cross-departmental team facilitating development and running of our simulation codes. This includes maintaining a consistent environment for our various codes to run in, quality assurance, builds, continuous integration, quality control, deployment, monitoring, general software development, maintaining our on-site high-performance computing (HPC) resource, and ensuring that our codes run effectively on it. We promote a high standard of software engineering, including frequent presentations and lean-coffee meetings.
Ciaran: I’m the Continuous Integration Engineer. I maintain the automated testing system, creating pipelines that run tests on our codes whenever developers make a change, and contribute to debugging efforts when the system flags issues. This enables developers to move at speed, building on each other’s code while preventing accidental merging of breaking changes.
Peter: My work is to manage the FL High Performance Computing complex, which contains both the clusters used by scientific computing and software engineering. This allows scientists and engineers to run much bigger design simulations than can run on a single computer, and software engineers to build and test several software packages and variants quickly. My work is mostly to configure, maintain and upgrade the HPC complex and to help the users make use of it effectively.
What did you do before joining FLF?
Jon: I studied Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the University of Nottingham, followed by a PhD in computational electromagnetics, moving to Canada for a post-doc. I then spent 20 years in the oil industry, both in the UK and the USA, mainly working on commercial software for reservoir simulation, but also electromagnetic and seismic interpretation software. I joined First Light Fusion in 2018.
Ciaran: I studied for a Masters in Mechanical Engineer at the University of Leicester, then started working in green-tech related companies as a mechanical design/automation engineer for some years. I joined First Light Fusion in 2022.
Peter: I have a MPhil in computer operating system engineering and then was a programmer developing tools and simulations for several years and eventually moved to manage several HPC complexes at various universities and businesses. I joined First Light fusion in 2022.
What made you want to join the First Light team?
Jon: It was time for a switch to work on clean energy. First Light Fusion provided the opportunity to apply my previous experience in a new domain and contribute to something significant. I was also drawn by the prospect of working for a focussed agile company and with a group of highly skilled and motivated people.
Ciaran: I’ve always been interested in fusion energy and the physics behind it, and was looking for a career switch to software, so when I saw an opening at an innovative UK startup focused on fusion, I jumped at the chance to get on board.
Peter: Fusion simulations is an area I had not experienced before and it looked quite interesting because the physical conditions are rather unusual, and the size of the HPC complex at FLF was significant but not so large that my contribution would just be one of many as at larger organizations.
What most excites you about the future of fusion energy?
Jon: There is so much activity going on right now around the world that fusion energy may become a practical solution sooner than we think.
Ciaran: Near limitless clean energy is very attractive, particularly with energy demand increasing across the whole world.
Peter: The technical side of modern civilization is based on having abundant energy and current energy sources are in different ways rather more polluting than fusion is going to be so they cannot be scaled up as needed.
What advice to do you have for someone interested in working in fusion or physics?
Jon: I’m not a physicist, but I’ve always had an interest in physics, and it’s an exciting area to be in. There are many ways you can contribute. If you relish a challenge, and want to be part of the journey, then go for it.
When you’re not at work, what do you enjoy doing?
Jon: I enjoy adventure travel, trekking, occasional mountaineering, photography, and keeping fit enough throughout the year so I’m able to do these trips.
Ciaran: Travelling, gym-going, martial arts, adventure sports (e.g. skiing), miniature painting, and trading – in short, too many things.
Peter: I like to read about history and economics, in particular in relation to the evolution of science and technology.
What is your favourite thing about working at First Light?
Jon: Over the nearly eight years I’ve been here, it has been fascinating to watch the building of facilities, the progress of experiments, the development of our simulation codes and HPC capability, and the growth of the company and how it has adapted as our knowledge and experience has increased. I can see how the work I do directly impacts our simulation capability and moves us towards the goal of practical fusion.
Ciaran: I like working as part of a team of smart, motivated, and friendly people who are focused on achieving a big goal.
Peter: Fusion simulations have nearly unlimited requirements for computing speed and building HPC complexes and tuning software to deliver as much as possible within the budget of a small or medium size organization allows me to be creative. Also, the people and the topic are quite interesting.
