Katy Huff on The Carpentries

A Strategic Plan for the Software Carpentry Foundation

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Software Carpentry Foundation Steering Committee held a strategic planning meeting in August. In that two-day, intensive meeting, we focused on developing a long term strategic plan for the Software Carpentry Foundation. The process emphasized identification of our stakeholders and mission. It also used the results of our community survey to identify our strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats that face the organization. The resulting Strategic Plan was developed over the course of the in-person meeting and summarized into a document. With vital feedback from the Advisory Council, whose role is to offer advice and guidance to SCF on strategic matters, we arrived at the document that now resides here.

Software-Carpentry-Inspired Book: Released and On Sale!

Tue, 14 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

We're excited to announce the official release of "Effective Computation In Physics". This book was written by two Software Carpentry instructors, Anthony Scopatz and myself, Katy Huff. We were enormously inspired by the vision and work of the Software Carpentry community and expanded on that vision in the book to create a "field guide to research in Python." While examples and more advanced content are presented in the context of research in the physical sciences, the majority of the book will be useful to all researchers doing scientific computation. In book form, we were able to dive in and expand on best practices more deeply and more extensively than is possible in a workshop. We're extremely proud to have created "SWC in a book" as instructor Daniel Chen recently described it.

You (or your students and colleagues) can even get a 50% discount if you grab it before July 17th using the code: WKPYDP.

Shape The Future of Software Carpentry in an SCF Standing Subcommittee

Thu, 05 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The Software Carpentry Foundation Steering Committee was elected to pursue ambitious goals driven by the voices and expertise in our community. We are therefore thrilled to announce a set of community-driven subcommittees aimed at initiatives essential to the Software Carpentry Foundation.

Today, we are asking for representatives from the community to support this effort and shape the future of Software Carpentry. Please step forward to volunteer for the standing committee most important to you. Committee members will be asked to dedicate a few hours per month. To join us, please email the SCF Steering Committee with your name and a few sentences about your interest.

2015 Election: Katy Huff

Fri, 09 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Software Carpentry has been part of my life for over six years, I began as an instructor, organizer, and curriculum developer and have been honored to grow as a researcher alongside Software Carpentry as it evolved over that time. In these years, I have organized and taught over a dozen workshops and have, for the last four months, served as an interim Steering Committee member. I have also made an effort to expand the reach of Software Carpentry as a co-author of both the Best Practices paper and a new O'Reilly book, "Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research in Python." Of course, none of this pays the bills. For that, I am a nuclear engineer...

How to Help at a Bootcamp

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

When we lead a bootcamp of more than, say, a dozen people, extra helpers are essential to making everything go smoothly. As our guide to running a bootcamp says:

It's ideal to have one helper for every five attendees. Recruit helpers locally, from your own and neighbouring institutions.

Helpers should have some knowledge of the material covered in the bootcamp. Ideally, a helper will already have attended a bootcamp and would like to become an instructor themselves.

Lessons Learned at the University Of Chicago

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Software Carpentry brought a bootcamp to the University of Chicago with collaboration from the FLASH Center at the University of Chicago's Computational Institute and The Hacker Within . The instructors were Milad Fatenejad, Katy Huff, Anthony Scopatz, and Joshua R. Smith.

Space constraints at U. Chicago meant that only 50 empty seats could be secured for two contiguous days on campus. But, the room was lovely!

Trieste, Italy Workshop - Week 1

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Last Sunday, Tommy Guy and Katy Huff flew to Trieste, a small city in northeastern Italy, to assist in teaching an Advanced School on Scientific Software Development at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP).

Stefano Cozzini, Graziano Giuliani, and Antun Balaz invited us to help them teach this two week workshop which is one in a series of workshops focused on high performance computing for scientific applications. The ICTP mission is to extend access to advanced scientific tools and education to scientists from developing countries. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-graduate scientists gathered in Italy from nations all over South America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Knowledge of the Second Kind

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Over the last three years, a group of students has quietly been converting snacks and enthusiasm into scientists who can program.

The Hacker Within is a student club at the University of Wisconsin — Madison which came about when a number of nuclear engineering graduate students needed a forum to exchange tools and share best practices for their increasingly software intensive research. The success that followed provides an example of an educational model that has fostered necessary software skills among science and engineering graduate students.