People: The NumFOCUS Team - NumFOCUS

Dr. Julie Hollek has been a long-time user and champion of Scientific Python and the ecosystem. She is the co-chair of the SciPy Conference and has volunteered with the conference for 10 years. She previously served on NumFOCUS’ Diversity & Inclusion in Scientific Computing (DISC) committee.
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Noor Aftab brings over a decade of experience driving tech innovation and digital transformation in the cloud and AI industries. As a Senior Program Manager at Amazon, she leads strategic customer engagements for the Amazon S3 program, building Generative AI solutions to enhance productivity and customer success.
Andy Terrel received his PhD in computer science at the University of Chicago in 2010. His major emphasis of research has been on the automation of numerical methods on high performance computing resources.
Francesca van Doorn is the Director of Finance and Operations at Windward Fund, a nonprofit fiscal sponsor supporting environmental science and advocacy projects. In this role, she oversees financial operations and provides strategic guidance for a large and complex portfolio of fiscally sponsored initiatives.
Dr. James A. Bednar is the Director of Professional Services at Anaconda, Inc., leading a team of developers supporting a suite of open source scientific software projects. He founded the HoloViz project, adopted as a fiscally sponsored NumFOCUS project in 2023, and manages its Datashader, Param, and Colorcet packages.
Sanket Verma has been an integral part of the NumFOCUS and PyData community for over eight years, championing the growth of PyData culture across India. As the leader of PyData Delhi, he organized India’s first PyData conference in 2017, which catalyzed the formation of numerous PyData chapters across the country.
A software engineer based in Japan, Tetsuo Koyama has a strong interest in scientific computing and visualization using computer graphics. As one of the primary developers of the PyVista project, he is deeply engaged in advancing open-source tools and technologies. His passion for open-source conference management and community support is reflected in his roles on the SciPy Conference management staff and as a volunteer for the NumFOCUS Election Committee.
Sophia Yang is the Head of Developer Relations at Mistral AI, where she oversees developer education, ecosystem partnerships, and community engagement. A passionate advocate for the open-source Python and AI community, Sophia has contributed to numerous open-source projects and frequently speaks at events promoting open-source initiatives.
Sanket Verma has been an integral part of the NumFOCUS and PyData community for over eight years, championing the growth of PyData culture across India. As the leader of PyData Delhi, he organized India’s first PyData conference in 2017, which catalyzed the formation of numerous PyData chapters across the country.
Wolf Vollprecht has been deeply engaged in open-source projects, driven by a passion for scientific curiosity and the belief in the transformative impact of open source, open science, and open knowledge. Committed to maximizing the efficiency and impact of open-source funding, Wolf has contributed significantly to the NumFOCUS community by establishing the PackagingCon conference and serving as a core member of conda-forge for the past four years.
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Kalyan Prasad, from India, began his journey as a newspaper delivery boy and, through perseverance and self-learning, evolved into a Data and AI Scientist. Over the years, he has led data and analytics teams and previously served as a Data Science and Analytics Manager. With experience spanning both industry and academia, Kalyan brings a well-rounded approach to problem-solving and innovation. He is passionate about open-source communities and, for over six years, has actively contributed to and helped lead various initiatives within the global Python, data science, and scientific communities.
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Yashasvi Misra is a Data Engineer at AB InBev, celebrated as a Grace Hopper Scholar, and a recipient of the prestigious Excellence Award from Samsung Research India. With a strong foundation in Data Modeling, Data Architecture, Python, and Data Science, Yashasvi excels in driving impactful projects and embracing cutting-edge technologies.
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With over six years of experience in cloud technologies—including AWS, Kubernetes, and Docker—Koti Vellanki is a skilled DevOps Engineer. An active volunteer and organizer for PyCon events around the world, they are passionate about fostering community engagement and promoting inclusivity in tech. [Name] is excited to contribute to the NumFOCUS ecosystem and collaborate with fellow community members.
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Margaret Fero (they/them) is an open source contributor and privacy researcher who started attending Python events through their work with the Write the Docs. They’ve stuck around and begun using Python more because of the Pythonista community, and because of the excellent packages for their machine learning and information security projects. They are currently the Sponsorships Lead at Techtonica, a US-based nonprofit helping women and nonbinary adults seeking economic empowerment overcome barriers to technical roles.
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Hand Moritz Günther grew up in Germany, where he obtained an undergraduate and a PhD degree in Physics from the University of Hamburg with a thesis in astronomy. After that, he went as a Post-Doc to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and now works at MIT as a staff researcher for a major NASA science mission, the Chandra X-ray telescope. As part of this job, he develops software and analysis algorithms for X-ray astronomy. Moritz has also developed software for the analysis of performance data of reconstructed antique Roman river warships.
Rachel Kerestes joined NumFOCUS in 2025. Trained