SORTEE Conference 2021
Americas
30 minutes
July 12th, 1700 UTC
Talk title: Openscapes: Better Science for Future Us
Talk abstract: There is huge potential for open source software to accelerate scientific research, since it not only provides powerful analytical tools that increase reproducibility but also creates a new frontier for communication and publishing when combined with the open web. However, a fundamental shift is needed in scientific culture so that we value and prioritize data science, teamwork, and open practices, and provide training, support, and credit for our emerging scientific leaders. I will discuss my work to help catalyze this shift in environmental and Earth science through Openscapes (openscapes.org). Openscapes helps research teams reimagine data analysis, develop modern skills that are of immediate value to them, and cultivate collaborative and inclusive research communities. We do this primarily by mentoring cohorts of research teams through our Champions Program, which was designed based on my own Ocean Health Index team’s path to better science in less time (Lowndes et al. 2017). I’ll describe how open software facilitates kinder science (Lowndes 2019) and share examples of how Openscapes Champions teams from academia and government are working more reproducibly and transparently while contributing to the greater open movement.
Brief bio: Julia Stewart Lowndes, PhD founded Openscapes to champion kinder, better science in less time together. A marine ecologist and data scientist, she has shifted from doing her own research to empowering research teams with skillsets and mindsets for open, collaborative, and reproducible research. Focused on fostering diverse, inclusive, and leaderful open data science research communities, she is a R community contributor through rOpenSci and RStudio, a Carpentries Instructor, and co-founder Eco-Data-Science and R-Ladies Santa Barbara. She is a Senior Fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California Santa Barbara, a 2019 Mozilla Fellow, and earned her PhD from Stanford University in 2012 studying drivers and impacts of Humboldt squid in a changing climate.
