Profile
Mike Hinchey
-
About Me:
I’m a software engineer, who has worked in the space industry (for NASA) and in universities in Ireland, USA, Australia and Sweden. Everyone assumes I love science fiction, which I don’t – except Red Dwarf, but that’s more comedy than sci-fi. One of my former students co-wrote the highest earning song of all time. Can you figure out what it is?
-
Read more
These days I’m based in Limerick, Ireland, where I was born. But I spend a lot of my time in Washington DC (where I also have a house), as I spent 15 years working for NASA as Director of the NASA Software Engineering Laboratory.
-
My Work:
i was hired by NASA because of my expertise in mathematical correctness of software (ensuring that we *know* software will work), but nowadays I work very much in the area of autonomous systems.
-
Read more
I was hired by NASA because of my expertise in the area of mathematical correctness of software. That is, showing that software will work the way we want it to. For space exploration this is really important, and most missions are planned for 20-30 years before launch and the software is only written at the end. We need to know that the software will do what it’s supposed to and often we can’t really test it fully beforehand. The software is just too big and too complex and until the hardware is actually in use, we can’t really test it. So we use mathematics to prove that the software will work and if there’s a problem that we will be able to recover from it. It doesn’t guarantee that we won’t have problems. But it really reduces the likelihood.
We’ve applied these techniques to a number of NASA missions, including the famous Rovers and the James Webb Space Telescope and the new Artemis mission. We also used these techniques in the servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.
-
My Typical Day:
I don’t have a typical day. Some days start really early so that I can talk with people in other time zones. These days most of that is online.
-
Read more
I don’t really have a typical day. Some days I start very early to talk with other people in other countries. So for example, I give a lot of talks in India and 9am their time is 3:30am here. I try to push them to start a bit later but that’s not always possible. Other days i have evening meetings/conference calls with people in the US. It means that the day can be long, but I usually have plenty of breaks and some free time in-between.
Since Covid, things are very different. But previously I used to travel a lot. I usually average about 200 flights per year. So that’s a lot of fun and I get to visit a lot of places I wouldn’t otherwise get to.
I teach classes and I give a lot of talks to conferences and universities abroad.
I am Director-elect of IEEE (Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), which is the largest professional society in the world (almost 500,000 members). In 2025 and 2026 I will be in charge of all its activities in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.
-
What I'd do with the prize money:
I would help some aspiring engineers to attend an IEEE Student and Young Professionals event.
-
Read more
I would help some aspiring engineers to attend an IEEE Student and Young Professionals event.
-
Education:
University of Limerick, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge
-
Qualifications:
BSc (Computer Science), MSc (Computation), PhD (Computer Science)
-
Work History:
NASA, University of Limerick
-
Current Job:
Professor of Software Engineering
-
My Interview
-
How would you describe yourself in 3 words?
comedy-loving software nerd
What was your favourite subject at school?
English; people say it shows in my writing skills
What did you want to be after you left school?
I always wanted to be in the computer business in some way. Fairly early on i decided i wanted to be an academic.
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Yes.
What's your favourite food?
French, or anything hot and spicey.
What is the most fun thing you've done?
I've been Commander of the Space Shuttle simulator.
-