Mike Simpson
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Research Software Engineer Newcastle University |
Hello there! My name is Mike. I’m a 2025 SSI Fellow, and have been part of the RSE Community since 2017.
In 2019, I became a founding member of the Newcastle University RSE Team, contributing to a range of projects, including Colouring Cities… After serving on the conference committee for RSECon in 2022 and 2023, I became a trustee of the RSE Society in 2023, before being elected Vice President of the Society in 2024.
I am also someone who understands the importance of looking after your mental health, and what can happen when things go wrong. In 2011, I was made redundant, became single and had to move back in with my parents, all in the space of a few short weeks. This triggered a prolonged period of depression, anxiety and insomnia, and it took years of hard work and therapy to recover and turn my life around.
Then, in 2020, I became a father, just a few weeks into the first of the UK’s national lockdowns during the COVID-19 Pandemic. You can read more about my experience in this blog post, but it lead to burnout and an anxiety attack. Despite this, I believe that I handled the situation remarkably well, thanks to a resilience acquired during my previous experiences with mental health problems.
I have continued to speak openly about my mental health, including writing about it in blog posts, short stories and other resources, many of which are linked to in the posts below. I believe it is important to help smash the societal stigma around mental health in general, and men’s mental health in particular.
Posts
The following blogs were authored by Mike Simpson:
Working from Home
23 Mar 2025
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Working remotely has become part of most of our lives since the events of 2020. Working from home has its own challenges for our mental and physical health, so I’ve compiled a list of tips to look after yourself while working remotely. |
How Writing Saved My Life
20 Mar 2025
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Yes, I know, it’s an over-melodramatic and clickbait-y title. But it is definitely true that writing about my experiences enabled me to process what I’d been through and allowed me to finally recover after years of struggling with depression, anxiety and insomnia. |
My Backstory
14 Mar 2025
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I became a father in April 2020, a few weeks into the UK’s first COVID-19 lockdown. The challenges of being a new parent and continuing to hold down a job during the chaos and uncertainty led to a decline in my mental health and, ultimately, to burnout and an anxiety attack. |
Kiwifruit
22 Aug 2018
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Kiwifruit (often abbreviated as kiwi), or Chinese gooseberry is the edible berry of several species of woody vines in the genus Actinidia. |
