Mike Simpson
Hi there! My name is Mike. I’m a 2025 SSI Fellow, and have been part of the RSE Community since I attended my first RSE Conference in 2017.
I am also someone who understands the importance of looking after your mental health, and what can happen when things go wrong. In 2011, my life was turned upside down in the space of a few short weeks, triggering 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 led to burnout and an anxiety attack.
I have spoken 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 smash the stigma around mental health in general, and men’s mental health in particular.
Because of my experiences, I know first hand the challenges faced by RSEs, how they can impact our mental health, and what can happen when it all becomes too much. That is why I applied for the SSI Fellowship, so we can learn from my experiences and the experiences of others, and help make sure that no one else has to go through what I did.
Posts
The following blogs were authored by Mike Simpson:
Top Issues and Solutions from the Research Software Community
19 Nov 2025
19 Nov 2025
As part of the ConveRSE project, I’ve been using Mentimeter to collect data from attendees of my “Let’s Talk About Mental Health” talk.
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A Few Clarifications
28 Oct 2025
28 Oct 2025
I’ve now given my “Let’s Talk About Mental Health” talk at various events. I will soon be sharing the recording of the talk from RSECon25. I’m mostly happy with the content of the talk, and hopefully none of it is particularly controversial, but there are a few points that I wanted...
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Let's talk about Setting Boundaries
28 Sep 2025
28 Sep 2025
One thing I’ve learned doing this job is that one of the best things you can do to protect your mental health is to set boundaries. This is something that became particularly important during the pandemic, but continues to be a challenge now that a so many of us work from...
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Let's talk about Getting Help
11 Aug 2025
11 Aug 2025
One of the questions I’ve been asked while giving my mental health talk is “where can I get support?” So, we’ve compiled a list of options. Some of these resources are linked on our resources page, but I wanted to list some of them here and discuss my experiences...
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Let's talk about Supporting your Team
22 Jun 2025
22 Jun 2025
Another question I’ve been asked a few times while giving my mental health talk is “what can I do to support my team?” I was pleasantly surprised by this, and its encouraging that so many managers are thinking about it.
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Let's talk about Impostor Syndrome
09 May 2025
09 May 2025
Have you ever been working on a project and felt like you didn’t deserve to be there? Chances are, you have experienced Impostor Syndrome; a feeling of self-doubt and inadequacy that is common in the research software community. For a lot of us, it’s just part of the job. But is...
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Task Management for Humans as Self-Care
25 Apr 2025
25 Apr 2025
I’d been looking for ways to support mental health in the research software community, but I was struggling to come up with practical solutions. Then, a surprising idea emerged from a conversation at the SSI’s Collaborations Workshop in 2024.
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Working from Home
23 Mar 2025
23 Mar 2025
Working remotely has become part of our lives for many of us since the events of 2020. And, while it has its benefits, working from home presents a unique set of challenges for our mental and physical health, so I’ve compiled a list of tips to look after yourself while working...
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How Writing Saved My Life
20 Mar 2025
20 Mar 2025
Yes, I know, it’s a melodramatic and clickbaity 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.
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My Backstory
14 Mar 2025
14 Mar 2025
I became a father in April 2020, a couple of weeks into the UK’s first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. I found myself not only dealing with challenges of being a new parent for the first time, but had to do so while holding down a job during the chaos and...
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