Roxana Rușitoru

Roxana Rușitoru (MEng Computing, Software Engineering 2012) is a Research Engineer at Arm Research in Cambridge and in addition to her day-to-day research with Arm Technology helps organize and drive the Arm High Performance Computing User’s Group series of workshops and events held at the world’s largest HPC conferences.

Tell us about your time at Imperial

"This was the best time of my life up to that point. It was a place where one can find likeminded people and friends with similar interests (and have hardware design challenges on kitchen whiteboards). From an academic perspective, it was an amazing learning experience, and the freedom to effectively model our degree to whatever interests us has been most welcomed. I believe this is a great benefit to have.

During my 3rd and 4th years, I was also an Undergraduate Teaching Assistant for discrete mathematics/logic/reasoning about programs. This was an invaluable experience that helped me hone how I explain and present information. The diverse set of societies that one must choose from is a great way to meet people socially from across the university, make new friends and try out new things in a fun environment. In true Imperial fashion, I wanted to set up a new society, so I co-founded the Imperial College Robotics Society. I was also on the steering committee of the Software Club and was part of a few other societies."

Why did you choose to study at Imperial? 

"I wanted to study at a top institution and Imperial, a university with a strong focus on engineering, was the best match for me in Europe for Computing. My priority was to be in an environment that always pushes one to strive for excellence, with cutting-edge teaching and research environments."

Can you tell us what you’ve done since Graduation?

"After graduation, I joined Arm Research in Cambridge, part of the Software & Large Scale Systems group, focusing on HPC (High Performance Computing). I have had the pleasure of being one of the few who have been working on Arm in HPC since the beginning, with our efforts paying off as the world has started to embrace HPC machines based on Arm technology. As part of this, I worked on the European-funded series of projects, Mont-Blanc, leading the Software Ecosystem in Mont-Blanc 3 and provided technical contributions throughout all 4 projects. I have had the pleasure of being the Conference chair for the Arm Research Summit, a 400-person conference that sees both academics and industry present their latest research. In addition to this, I have been serving on various conferences’ technical program committees (e.g, DATE, Computing Frontiers, Supercomputing). For the past few years, I have been helping organize and drive the Arm HPC User’s Group series of workshops and events held at the world’s largest HPC conferences, such as ISC-HPC and SC."

How has what you learnt at Imperial helped you in your career so far?

"The knowledge I’ve acquired whilst at Imperial has come in handy even years after I graduated, including the confidence in picking up new things with ease, and the work ethic has stayed with me forever. Most importantly, the occasional high-pressure moments of overlapping deadlines have enabled me to be prepared when I encountered similar situations at work (and be pleasantly surprised when I realized it was not as high-intensity as I originally expected)."

Do you have any advice for current Imperial students?

"Work hard, make the most out of your time at Imperial, as it’s an amazing place you are at, and learn from everything! You’d be surprised at how much it seems that the unimportant or small things can help you out later on in the future."