Mark Könnecke

Mark Könnecke works at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), where he is responsible for developing and maintaining the instrument control system SICS for SINQ. Furthermore, Mark is heavily involved with the development of the NeXus data format for neutron, muon and x-ray scattering. Mark studied mineralogy in Kiel, Germany, and proceeded to do a PhD in crystallography in Frankfurt and Darmstadt. After a postdoc at ISIS in the UK and a short stint in a commercial software company, he came to PSI.

- I have been working with ESS since the Design Review stage, where I contributed with recommendations on how to build an Instrument Control System for ESS. When BrightnESS was in place, Mark Hagen contacted me and asked if I wanted to be a partner in the project.

My main job is to run the Control Systems for the 16 neutron scattering instruments at the Swiss Spallation Neutron Source (SINQ) here at PSI. Within BrightnESS, we have hired two new staff members who work with the Data Management for the DMSC. My daily work also includes managing these employees and sharing my experiences.

Traditionally, it has been very hard to get funding for software projects in science. The visibility of the scientific software is very low although it provides the infrastructure to do the science. Therefore, I like that the project of BrightnESS combines science and software. The data system of SINQ is 20 years old and we would like to develop a new system in collaboration with ESS. A new system would enable us to do neutron event streaming for new experiments.  

One of the pivotal challenges for WP5 will be to get the data streams transported, written to discs and providing real time processing of the data for the scientists. On a managerial note, the main challenge will be to get all the bits and pieces from the different contributors to interact. For now, this is going very well.