Niklas Morberg (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Purpose: Training for early stage researchers and young leaders interested in furthering their Open Science skills
Outcome: Ambassadors for Open Science practice, training and education across multiple European and international bioinformatics communities.
Process: A 16-week mentoring & training program, based on the Mozilla Open Leader program, helping participants in becoming Open Science ambassadors by using three principles:
The vision of OLS program is to strengthen Open Science skills for early stage researchers and young leaders in science.
At the end of the program, our participants will be able to:
December 1, 2022 : Call for Application opens
See the guidelines and templates
December 12, 2022 (15:00 Universal Time): Application webinar( Talk + Q&A) - Recording
Watch recordings from previous webinars on YouTube
January 11, 2023 (12:00 Universal Time): Application Clinic Call( Q&A)
At this call, OLS team will be available to provide help if you have any question related to your application. Register to attend
January 15, 2023 : Call for applications closed
February 1, 2023 : Successful applicants announced
February 27, 2023: Start of the program
June 12, 2023: End of the program
During the program,
Organizers will inform participants of the week schedule by email.
Participants join this program with a project that they either are already working on or want to develop during this program. More details about the role of a project lead (mentee) can be found here.
For the seventh round of the OLS program, we welcome 54 participants with 33 projects.
Our project leads are supported in this program by our mentor-community who are paired based on the compatibility of expertise, interests and requirements of their projects. Our mentors are Open Science practitioners and champions with previous experiences in training and mentoring. They are currently working in different professions in data science, publishing, community building, software development, clinical studies, industries, scientific training and IT services.
Mentors advise and inspire
We thank the 34 mentors this round.
I am a Community Manager for eLife, a nonprofit committed to transforming research communication in part through improvements to research culture. As part of my role, I am responsible for creating and managing programmes and advisory groups to ensure that eLife’s work is driven by its global community, including its early-career researcher community. I am a keen advocate for open science and works to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in research. I am also a former researcher (immunology/virology), I earned a PhD in Immunology from the University New South Wales, Australia, after graduating from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and did a short post-doc before making the switch to eLife.
I am a Colombian biologist (she/her) with a background in Plant Community Ecology, Biodiversity Informatics, and Open and Responsible Science. I am a core member of The Turing Way and a SSI/OLS Fellow 2023
Arielle has spent her career to date working in research-adjacent fields, starting with a stint at open access publisher PLOS, where she learnt the importance (and challenges) of open science, code, and data. Currently the Research Project Manager on the Tools, Practices & Systems programme at The Alan Turing Institute, she was a CSCCE Community Engagement Fellow in 2019 and continues to be actively involved in the community. She is a contributor to the Turing Way project.
Batool is a computational biologist affiliated with both KAIMRC in Saudi Arabia and the University of Liverpool in the UK. As an advocate for Open Science and its role in improving scientific and economic outputs in the Middle east, Batool established an Open Science Community in Saudi Arabia (OSCSA). OSCSA aims to create significant value towards Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which focus on enhancing knowledge and improving equal access to education in the Kingdom
I am a Mathematician and hold a Ph.D. in Cybernetics, currently working as a NeuroAI researcher to develop brain-augmented AI systems. I have been involved with several open sources (e.g. Linux software development community of Turkey) and open science (Brainhack, OHBM, OLS) communities and worked on various projects for the dissemination, training, and management of open science/source projects and communities. I developed guidelines and educational materials and organized many events and training courses to train government and military officials, students, and scientific researchers. I love creating means to bring community members with diverse backgrounds and expertise.
I am a researcher and graduate teaching assistant at the University of Buenos Aires. I design nanomaterials to solve problems, recently using machine learning to guide and optimize the process.
Stephane Fadanka, is a molecular biologist and Open Science ambassador, passionate about democratizing research tools and methods to enhance equity for researchers. With five years of experience as a co-founder of Mboalab Biotech and as a Research Manager for Beneficial Bio, Stephane has developed protocols, hardware prototypes, and manufacturing processes for local enzyme production in Cameroon. Currently an Arthuro Falashi PhD scholar at the ICGEB in Trieste, Italy, Stephane collaborates with various research groups and organizations to promote Open Science across Africa.
open life science ambassador and bioinformatician interested with infectious disease research
Theoretical & Quantitative Ecology freak. SciComm & Open Science leader. Catalyst of movements.
I am a PhD student with several interests that keeps me busy outside the lab. I dabble in science communication
Data scientist involved in research project related to the integration of mental health in gender responsive peacebuilding.
Former neuro-geneticist (10 year of research on fruit fly memory and behavior), I have been more recently interested in data analysis and management, as a specialisation for my interests in open science (open research). I am presently working on ways (technical and social) to implement the principles of FAIR and open data in the lab workflow and ways to foster collaboration between researchers via the SmartFigure Gallery project.
Obanda joined Crossref in 2023 to work with Crossref Ambassadors in effectively engaging their communities and to support Crossref’s outreach initiatives. Obanda is passionate about building an inclusive research ecosystem where researchers across the globe can easily access scientific knowledge and make meaningful connections. His previous experience includes social entrepreneurship and science communication. For fun, Obanda likes to explore historical sites and experience sunset.
I am an enthusiast for using tech to make processes more efficient and reproducible. Currently, I am the Co-Executive Director of the Digital Research Academy that provides bespoke training in Open Science, Research Software Engineering, and Data Literacy through an international network of expert trainers. Things that make me happy right now are sunshine and spending time with my school-aged kid discovering the world.
I am Community Manager RDM and Open Science at VU Amsterdam. My background is in theoretical linguistics. My goal is to help colleagues connect and learn from each other and with each other
Caleb is a 19/20 Mozilla Fellow and a Bioinformatician, interested in teaching, open science, reproducibility, machine learning, FAIR Genomics, and community building.
Michael is a PhD bioinformatics student with a keen interest in epigenetics and genomics. A co-founder of Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya (BHKI). He is a certified Software Carpentries instructor, an Open Life Science (OLS) graduate and a mentor. He is passionate about capacity building!
Role in OLS:
Director of Partnerships and Strategy
Malvika Sharan is a Senior Researcher at The Alan Turing Institute, where she leads a team of community managers and co-leads The Turing Way, a community-led handbook on data science. She is a co-founder of Open Life Science, and an active contributor of several open source/science projects. Connect with her on topics such as community building, open science, strategic collaboration and representation of marginalised members in leadership.
I am currently the infrastructure and impact measurement coordinator at MetaDocencia. I collaborate with The Turing Way, the OpenSciency project (formerly the NASA TOPS OpenCore team) and am a 2023 SSI and OLS fellow. I am also co-mentoring two Outreachy interns with the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia.
I am a sociologist and computer scientist who investigates how ground-truth data for machine learning is produced. The focus of my research are labor conditions and power dynamics in data generation and labeling. I lead the newly funded research group Data, Algorithmic Systems, and Ethics at Weizenbaum-Institut. I also work as a researcher at DAIR Institute where I am thinking through ways of engaging communities of data workers in AI research.
Systems administrator and PhD student specializing in Workflows, Open Science and data management. I manage research platforms that enhance collaboration and reproducibility, combining technical expertise with advanced research skills.
I enjoy writing code to analyse biological data. Outside that I’m either working at Bioinformatics Hub of Kenya initiative (BHKi), recording my podcast (The Science in Real Life podcast), reading or volunteering in passion projects
Role in OLS:
Chief of Staff
Patricia is currently a Research Data Specialist working at the Digital Curation Centre at the University of Edinburgh. Before joining the DCC, she was the Research Repository Advisor at the University of Birmingham and have previously worked as a data librarian at CERN’s Scientific Information Service working closely with software developers to deliver data and code sharing solutions. She loves collaborating openly and making projects welcoming to new comers.
Riva is a Linguist that uses computational techniques to explore how language use changes. She is an editor at Programming Historian, a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, and a member of the RLadies Global Leadership Team.
Saranjeet is a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute’s 2023 Inauguration. She has a Masters degree in Statistics from University of Pune and is a Technical Writer of the R Development Guide. Throughout her career, she’s been involved with a number of software engineering communities and has been selected in open source programs like Google Summer of Code 2020, Digital Infrastructure Incubator 2021 by Code for Science and Society, Google Season of Docs 2022, and a Subject Matter Expert for the Open Science Tools and Resources Module of NASA TOPS. In 2021, she participated in the Open Life Science program (cohort-4), during which she co-founded the Research Software Engineering (RSE
I’m a molecular neuroscientist with a big interest in all about DNA, biology, data analysis and more importantly…open science and reproducibility! To counteract the screen time, I play with books, yoga, beer and whatever I can research about :)
I am a young researcher and freelance data scientist, currently pursuing a master’s degree in Systems Biology at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. I have worked in Bioinformatics and Cheminformatics for five years at different laboratories. My current research interests are devoted to Network Science and Machine Learning for drug discovery. I am part of several research, open-science, and software development communities ( ISCBSC, The Carpentries, Streamlit Creators, and Open Life Science. Moreover, I am involved in various initiatives to empower Bioinformatics in Ecuador and Latin America.
I have a Ph.D. in Biology (neuroscience) where I acquired diverse tools for data analysis and Open Science. In the last years, I became interested in the impact of new technologies and their ethical implications in Public Health
Role in OLS:
Executive Director, Business and Development Lead
Yo is the executive director and a co-founder of OLS. As an EngD student at the University of Manchester, Yo is studying pathogen-related data sharing and sustainability of open source software.Yo is a founder of Code is Science, and previously, they were editor for the PLOS Open Source Toolkit, editor emeritus at the Journal of Open Source Software, board member of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, and a software developer at the University of Cambridge, working on an open source biological data warehouse called InterMine.
Mentorship roles can sound like a big personal responsibility and can be overwhelming for new mentors. To support our mentors in this program, we will offer training, topic-based guided discussions and opportunity for social interaction over 4 calls during the mentorship round:
In the mentor training, our mentors will then gain mentoring skills (active listening, effective questioning, giving feedback), learn to celebrate successes and gain confidence on navigating challenges in mentoring.
A dedicated slack channel will facilitate open discussions among mentors to help them discuss their experiences, challenges and tips and tricks (contact the team if you are not yet on this channel).
Experts are invited to join cohort calls or individual mentorship calls to share their experience and expertise during the program.
We thank the 4 persons who registered to be experts in this round.
Georgiana is a JupyterHub team member and an Open Source Infrastructure Engineer at 2i2c, where she is working with communities in research and education, managing the infrastructure behind the hubs they use and providing support for hub operations. Georgiana also cares about building inclusive communities and open work practices.
Role in OLS:
NASA Cohort Coordinator (contract)
I work as data manager at CONABIO where I develop FAIR workflows for biodiversity and agricultural data. I also study a PhD at UNAM, and my research is focused on the challenges for integrating social and ecological data. I love working in interdisciplinary projects that combine my interests in sustainability, data and open research
Laura is a human rights and non-discrimination expert researching the societal impact of data, technology and AI. She is currently a Tech Policy Fellow at UC Berkeley.
Hello! I study meta-methodology in the behavioral sciences (when do our methods work and fail? and how can we improve them?) especially for vulnerable populations. Currently re-thinking how multi-country studies can be done, and best practices in ethical open science for qualitative research and indigenous psychology.
A dedicated slack channel will facilitate open discussions among experts and other participants in OLS-7 to help them expand their network while discussing relevant topics (contact the team if you are not yet on this channel).
Facilitators work closely with the OLS organisers to manage and run cohort calls. They lead efforts in preparing cohort call notes, co-hosting cohort calls and ensuring the sharing of call recordings and resources through OLS channelss
We thank the 10 persons who facilitated in this round.
I’m a research software engineer at The University of Manchester and an SSI fellow. I am passionate about open science and regularly deliver training workshops. My research interests include software sustainability, open-source software and community building.
I’m a PhD student in environmental psychology with a passion to make science accessible to as many people as possible. The first step in this journey is through open science practices which is why I’m part of the core team at Agape focusing on creating a community of practice in which open science is normal practice for PhDs and other students or academics.
open life science ambassador and bioinformatician interested with infectious disease research
Data scientist involved in research project related to the integration of mental health in gender responsive peacebuilding.
A bioinformatician + biochemist passionate about drug discovery and finding solutions for Africa’s most burdensome diseases.
I am currently the infrastructure and impact measurement coordinator at MetaDocencia. I collaborate with The Turing Way, the OpenSciency project (formerly the NASA TOPS OpenCore team) and am a 2023 SSI and OLS fellow. I am also co-mentoring two Outreachy interns with the Open Science Community Saudi Arabia.
I am an Early Stage Researcher focused on developing and applying novel statistical and machine learning methods for studying human health and disease. I prefer to invest my time in science communication, open science, reproducibility, and community building.
I am a nuclear physicist in ‘an environmentalist body’.
I have a Ph.D. in Biology (neuroscience) where I acquired diverse tools for data analysis and Open Science. In the last years, I became interested in the impact of new technologies and their ethical implications in Public Health
Role in OLS:
Director of Learning and Technology
Bérénice is a bioinformatician (post-doc in the Freiburg Galaxy Team), analyzing biological data and developing tools for data analysis, mainly via Galaxy. In her current role, she also serves as a deputy training coordinator for ELIXIR Germany (de.NBI). Bérénice is passionate about training and education. She founded and co-leads the Galaxy Training Material project, and regularly giving talks and workshops on topics like data analysis, and tool development. She is also a founder of Street Science Community, a citizen science and outreach program.
Role in OLS:
Director of Finance and Operations
Emmy is the Director of Finance and Operations at Open Life Science and Engagement Lead at Invest in Open Infrastructure. She is passionate and curious about open, research culture and knowledge equity. Her expertise is in community design, and open research and scholarly communication.
Role in OLS:
Director of Partnerships and Strategy
Malvika Sharan is a Senior Researcher at The Alan Turing Institute, where she leads a team of community managers and co-leads The Turing Way, a community-led handbook on data science. She is a co-founder of Open Life Science, and an active contributor of several open source/science projects. Connect with her on topics such as community building, open science, strategic collaboration and representation of marginalised members in leadership.
Role in OLS:
Community Researcher & Programme Coordinator (contract)
Chilean worker and researcher. Social scientist (wannabe). I am an immigrant, not an expat. Open science hardware was my entrance to the world of critical open science. “Critical” as in: it matters who gets to be involved in science.
Role in OLS:
Executive Director, Business and Development Lead
Yo is the executive director and a co-founder of OLS. As an EngD student at the University of Manchester, Yo is studying pathogen-related data sharing and sustainability of open source software.Yo is a founder of Code is Science, and previously, they were editor for the PLOS Open Source Toolkit, editor emeritus at the Journal of Open Source Software, board member of the Open Bioinformatics Foundation, and a software developer at the University of Cambridge, working on an open source biological data warehouse called InterMine.
OLS team have established the following collaborations to support organisation specific projects within the OLS-7 cohort:
OLS has received the EOSC-Life Training grant (first round), to train and mentor EOSC-RI members under the collaboration name OLS-7 for EOSC-Life. In the simplest terms, EOSC-Life is 13 European life science Research Infrastructures making their data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) so that researchers can combine resources from multiple RIs for new research funded through our Open Calls and receive support through the variety of additional services we offer, including alignment with relevant standards and policies (GDPR, etc.).
Under the collaboration name OLS-7 for TNW, OLS has partnered with the Faculty of Applied Sciences through the Faculty Graduate School and the Data Steward, Dr. Esther Plomp at TU Delft. This partnership will offer training and mentoring to interested members from the Faculty of Applied Sciences to join the 7th cohort (OLS-7) individually or in teams. They will have an opportunity to develop Open Science aspects in the projects that they either already have been working on, or want to develop in the near future. Mentors will be preferably selected within their own discipline, as PhD candidates will be eligible for 5 Discipline-related credits for their Doctoral Education Programme.
Under the collaboration name OLS-7 for Turing, OLS has partnered with The Turing Way, a project within the Tools, Practices and Systems Research Program in The Alan Turing Institute. This partnership will offer training and mentoring to interested members from Turing and The Turing Way communities to join the seventh cohort (OLS-7) individually or in teams. They will have an opportunity to develop Open Science aspects in the projects that they either already have been working on, or want to develop in the near future. Mentors will be preferably selected from The Alan Turing Institute but there will be a possibility to match projects with the right mentor from the broader cohort. The roles and benefits for the participants and the eligibility of proposed projects will be as described for our main program.
This program will provide a unique opportunity to individuals and teams in these organisations to integrate best practices for open and reproducible research in new or ongoing projects.
The resources available to the OLS-7 cohort members will facilitate their communication, training, mentoring and learning process during their participation in the program.
The full cohort meetings take place every 2 weeks (unless mentioned otherwise) and last for 90 minutes.
During these calls:
The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.
Look up the shared notes for each call linked to the schedule in this website. You will also be updated via email each week by the organisers with additional details to aid your participation.
If you can’t make it to a call:
The call will be recorded and available on the OLS YouTube channel after the call.
If you can not attend most calls during the program due to the time zone incompatibility or other personal obligation, please let the organisers know. If you are unable to communicate with your mentor regularly or do not engage in the program as planned, we may need to evaluate if you are able to finish the program.
The Mentor-mentee calls take place every 2 weeks (unless mentioned otherwise) and last for 30 minutes.
During these calls:
Coordinate with your mentor how you manage the notes and assignments for your 1:1 calls.
The online communication options can be agreed upon by the mentor-mentee pairs. A few options to explore are the following:
If a mentor has to miss a mentee-mentor meeting, please discuss it with your mentee and reschedule your call. If you are unable to make it to any slot together, please find other ways (asynchronous documentation) to interact with your mentee.
If a mentor has to step back from the program for any reason, please communicate with the organisers to identify an alternative for their mentees.
In some weeks during which there is not cohort call, we will offer some optional skill-up calls.
The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.
Look up the shared notes for each call linked to the schedule in this website. You will also be updated via email each week by the organisers with additional details to aid your participation.
The Q&A sessions take place in weeks during which there is not cohort call. These calls are optional but highly valuable for enhancing your understanding of the materials discussed in OLS-4 with the help of other participants.
The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.
4 mentor calls will take place during the program.
The calls will be hosted online using the Zoom web-conferencing option. A link for the calls will be shared for each meeting separately.
The Cafetería is a zoom call in which we pretend we are at a normal Catefería: we chat if we want, we work on our stuff, we work on stuff with others, we stay for 5 minutes or for the entire time. We drink coffee, tea, mate, water, any beverage.
We have a short guide for invited speakers.
A dedicated Slack channel has been setup to facilitate real-time as well as asynchronous communication among the all members of the OLS-7 cohort. A personal invitation link will be shared with the participants via an email.
Organizers inform participants of the week schedule by email. An archive of all emails can be found on the private OLS-7 Google group.
An invitation is sent to all participants (mentees, mentors, etc) at the beginning of the program. If it is not the case, please contact the team
General updates from the program such as new posts, collaborations and relevant retweets will be shared via our official Twitter channel.
We have a public Gitter channel that can be used by members of the public contact the OLS team and community.
Updates regarding new calls for applications, announcements, and final project presentations are posted on the OLS public Google group
This project, as part of the Open Life Science community, is committed to providing a welcoming, friendly, and harassment-free environment for everyone to learn and grow by contributing. As a result, we require participants to follow our code of conduct.
This code of conduct outlines our expectations for participants within the community, as well as steps to reporting unacceptable behavior. We are committed to providing a welcoming and inspiring community for all and expect our code of conduct to be honored. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be banned from the community.
Our open source community strives to:
Be friendly and patient.
Be welcoming: We strive to be a community that welcomes and supports people of all backgrounds and identities. This includes, but is not limited to members of any race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, colour, immigration status, social and economic class, educational level, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, size, family status, political belief, religion, and mental and physical ability.
Be considerate: Your work will be used by other people, and you in turn will depend on the work of others. Any decision you take will affect users and colleagues, and you should take those consequences into account when making decisions. Remember that we’re a world-wide community, so you might not be communicating in someone else’s primary language.
Be respectful: Not all of us will agree all the time, but disagreement is no excuse for poor behavior and poor manners. We might all experience some frustration now and then, but we cannot allow that frustration to turn into a personal attack. It’s important to remember that a community where people feel uncomfortable or threatened is not a productive one.
Be careful in the words that we choose: We are a community of professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment and other exclusionary behavior aren’t acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to: Violent threats or language directed against another person, Discriminatory jokes and language, Posting sexually explicit or violent material, Posting (or threatening to post) other people’s personally identifying information (“doxing”), Personal insults, especially those using racist or sexist terms, Unwelcome sexual attention, Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behavior, Repeated harassment of others. In general, if someone asks you to stop, then stop.
Try to understand why we disagree: Disagreements, both social and technical, happen all the time. It is important that we resolve disagreements and differing views constructively. Remember that we’re different. Diversity contributes to the strength of our community, which is composed of people from a wide range of backgrounds. Different people have different perspectives on issues. Being unable to understand why someone holds a viewpoint doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Don’t forget that it is human to err and blaming each other doesn’t get us anywhere. Instead, focus on helping to resolve issues and learning from mistakes.
We encourage everyone to participate and are committed to building a community for all. Although we will fail at times, we seek to treat everyone both as fairly and equally as possible. Whenever a participant has made a mistake, we expect them to take responsibility for it. If someone has been harmed or offended, it is our responsibility to listen carefully and respectfully, and do our best to right the wrong.
Although this list cannot be exhaustive, we explicitly honor diversity in age, gender, gender identity or expression, culture, ethnicity, language, national origin, political beliefs, profession, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and technical ability. We will not tolerate discrimination based on any of the protected characteristics above, including participants with disabilities.
If you experience or witness unacceptable behavior, or have any other concerns, please report it by contacting the organisers - Bérénice, Malvika and Yo. (team@we-are-ols.org).
To report an issue involving one of the members, please email one of the members individually (berenice@we-are-ols.org, malvika@we-are-ols.org, yo@we-are-ols.org).
All reports will be handled with discretion. In your report please include:
Your contact information.
Names (real, nicknames, or pseudonyms) of any individuals involved. If there are additional witnesses, please include them as well. Your account of what occurred, and if you believe the incident is ongoing. If there is a publicly available record (e.g. a mailing list archive or a public IRC logger), please include a link.
Any additional information that may be helpful.
After filing a report, a representative will contact you personally, review the incident, follow up with any additional questions, and make a decision as to how to respond. If the person who is harassing you is part of the response team, they will recuse themselves from handling your incident. If the complaint originates from a member of the response team, it will be handled by a different member of the response team. We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse.
This code of conduct is based on the Open Code of Conduct from the TODOGroup.