Abby Mitchell
Abby is a Developer Advocate at Meta focused on supporting the Python Open Source community. She has worn a bunch of hats over the years - software developer, developer advocate, product manager, and people manager - but a consistent thread has been her passion for making technology approachable for all.
She / Her
Meta
Senior Developer Advocate
Session
Python’s Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) has long been a barrier for scientific computing, limiting the ability to fully utilise multi-core hardware and scale parallel workloads. With the introduction of free-threaded Python (PEP 703), this constraint is finally being lifted. Several core scientific Python packages (including NumPy, SciPy, and pandas) have already begun transitioning to support users who wish to use free-threading, paving the way for improved performance and concurrency for the broader ecosystem. This talk will explore what free-threading means for the scientific Python community, discuss the technical challenges in adopting this new paradigm, and highlight the practical impact it can have for users and maintainers. Attendees will receive actionable guidance for leveraging free-threading in their projects, including insights into the transition process and lessons learned from early adopters.