Mariano Spivak Mariano Spivak is trained as a computational research scientist with a PhD in Quantum Chemistry from URV (Spain). Currently work as a Postdoctoral Researcher / Research Programmer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As a scientist, I value good software as it facilitates and speeds up scientific research. As a software developer, I contribute to the scientific community by providing easy-to-use tools that simplify researchers’ challenges. Examples include extensions to Visual Molecular Dynamics (VMD), and NAMD in the biophysics community.