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 countries and scientific 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:
September 16, 2024: Start of the program
January 20, 2025: 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.
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 38 mentors this round.
Alexia Cardona is an experienced Training Lead in the fields of Data Science, Data Management and Bioinformatics. She is a leader in the ELIXIR international community, where together with the other leaders and partners drives the establishment of high-quality training for the Life Science Researchers. In ELIXIR she is a co-chair for the Learning Paths focus group and the Training Platform Coordinator for ELIXIR-UK.
Postdoctoral Researcher at the Alan Turing Institute. PhD in Physical Geography, passionate on the development of data-driven approaches and the automation of complex and large data tasks to tackle environmental changes using satellite imagery and geospatial data. Enjoy reading sci-fi books, cycling and coffee roasting.
Anne is a Community Manager based at the Alan Turing Institute, co-organiser of the FOSDEM Open Research Room, and an Artistic Research Fellow with the School of Commons. She’s passionate about interdisciplinary work, and supporting community-led spaces for learning and creativity.
Alexandra is the Senior Research Community Manager for BridgeAI, where she leads initiatives to drive AI adoption in diverse sectors like agriculture and creative industries. She brings experience from her previous leadership in the creative sector, managing impactful projects, and supporting SME growth. Passionate about community-building, Alexandra thrives in roles that empower innovation and professional development in AI and data science.
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 am a neuroscience researcher. I investigate how the human brain creates meaning through language and music, and through audition and vision. For my research, I use neuroimaging techniques such as Magnetoencephalography or functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. I am passionate about science outreach and SciArt, and I am interested in facilitating connections between scientists and artists. I am the current director of the Imagine Science Symbiosis Initiative and a Resident Scholar at the SAi Resident Collective. I love growing plants, (citi-)biking around NYC, and discovering new cafes.
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.
Scientific Project Manager working in the project AI4Life (https://ai4life.eurobioimaging.eu/) with strong interest in outreach and community building.
I’m a postdoctoral researcher applying machine learning methods to answer questions related to the impact of climate change on natural and managed ecosystems. As an Open Science aficionada, I love teaching and learning new ways to do open and reproducible research.
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.
All of my research and community building embraces an open scholarship approach in which I strive to develop more open and sustainable research practices across different disciplines.
I’m the Community Manager for Early-Career Researchers at eLife Sciences. I have a background in trade union organising, student union organising, leadership development and campaigning for change. I love supporting individuals make change in their communities, academic institutions and workplaces!
Exploring better ways to develop open science policies and to track its impact.
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
Head of Communities at eLife Sciences, overseeing efforts to increase adoption of open science
Theoretical & Quantitative Ecology freak. SciComm & Open Science leader. Catalyst of movements.
Data scientist involved in research project related to the integration of mental health in gender responsive peacebuilding.
Jez is Data Services Lead in The British Library’s Research Infrastructure Services team. He has over 10 years of experience developing and delivering research data management services and strategies at research-intensive higher education institutions in the UK, as part of a long-term goal to help communicate and collaborate more effectively using technology. He is an experienced teacher and is involved with The Carpentries as a Certified Instructor and early contributor to Library Carpentry. He is particularly interested in elevating the status of research software alongside research data in the scholarly record, and helping researchers develop the skills to make the most of this. He is a Fellow of the Software Sustainability Institute, 2020 intake.
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.
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.
Fabrice LESSA is a young seed technologist who graduated from the University of Yaounde 1-Cameroon and has over 5 years of experience in project management in the domains of sustainable agriculture, waste management, and climate change. He has worked as a research trainee at RASA Life Science Informatics and BIOCLUES, where he researched Genome-Wide Analysis, NGS data analysis, RNA-seq/Transcriptome analysis and articles review.
I work as a Research Associate at the University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia. I am a biologist with research experience and skills in different fields of science. I often venture outside biological topics and data, for example, into biomedical, environmental, conservation or even social sciences. In my research I use research synthesis methods, such as systematic reviews/maps and meta-analysis. I am active in a few different Open Science communities (e.g., SORTEE, AIMOS).
I am a nuclear physicist in ‘an environmentalist body’.
I studied chemistry and biotechnology, and worked in research data mangement and FAIR data. I am a father of two, and as a hobby project I co-create a database on apparent equilibrium constants of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, called openTECR. Happy to meet you!
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 :)
We are focusing on helping distributed and interdisciplinary software teams to collaborate more efficiently and build high-quality software systems, especially in the context of modern open-source collaboration forms, fork-based development, and interdisciplinary teams when building AI-enabled systems or scientific software. We also apply software engineering best practices to facilitate better collaborative Computer-Aided Design (CAD).
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
AI Governance and Ethics Consultant, LGBTQIA+ Advocate, Researcher with Open Science, Policy Consultant, Teacher & Mentor, Constantly Queering AI & Internet Governance and Digital Cooperation expert.
Derek Moore is an independent educational technologist (ed techie) and critical learning designer. He believes in open education resources (OER) and where he can, he licenses his work openly. Derek is also interested in exploring “open education practices” (OEP) to develop digital capacity.
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 0 persons who registered to be experts in this round.
A dedicated slack channel will facilitate open discussions among experts and other participants in OLS-9 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 0 persons who facilitated in this round.
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 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:
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.
This cohort is a joined effort between OLS and 3 international organisations and communities:
The resources available to the OLS-9 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.
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-9 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-9 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.