Election 2015 on The Carpentries

Announcing 2015 Steering Committee

Sat, 31 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

The election for the Software Carpentry Foundation's Steering Committee is now complete. 122 ballots were exercised out of 179 mailed out, and our new committee is:

Cast Your Vote

Mon, 26 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Voting is now open for Software Carpentry's new Steering Committee. If you are a member, you should have received a ballot by email from elections@electionbuddy.com. If you did not, please check your spam folder; if it is not there, please get in touch and we will sort it out as quickly as we can.

2015 Election: Adina Howe

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Hi! My name is Adina Howe, and I thank you for considering my qualifications to serve on the Steering Committee of the Software Carpentry Foundation.

Software Carpentry has played a major role in my professional development, and I would argue played an integral role in my ability to fulfill my dreams as becoming a tenure-track professor. In 2008, I participated in a Software Carpentry workshop at Michigan State University as a postdoc. At the time, my research required some computational prowess that I did not possess. SWC provided me a foundation, resources, and mentors to help me improve my skills and discuss my frustration and eventually success! This impact (and great instruction and mentorship) insprired me to join as one of the first round of instructors (2011-ish). For more details, please feel free to peruse my complete vitae.

2015 Election: Ivan Gonzalez

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I've been an instructor since September 2013 and have taught 10 workshops so far. I'm finishing a master's in Science Communication and work at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. I would propose three things to the new Committee: improve our outreach and communication strategies, expand Software Carpentry to other regions and languages, and strengthen the mentoring program for new instructors.

2015 Election: Jonah Duckles

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Hi, I'm Jonah Duckles, I have been active in teaching Software Carpentry workshops (seven so far) and have found a joy in teaching and learning this curriculum that has made me passionate about the mission of the organization. In my job, I work to spread knowledge, skills and competency in wide ranging areas of scholarly computing. Serving on the Software Carpentry Steering Committee would be a natural extension of my current job, dovetailing well into my current responsibilities and I'm excited to be considered.

2015 Election: Tim Cerino

Fri, 16 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

On the first day of my first programming job, my boss handed me 700 lines of spaghetti code written in PL/1 and asked me to "fix it." On paper, I was a Research Assistant at an Economic Policy think-tank. I had taken a few Computer Science classes and had coded for fun as a kid and in college. But at that moment I felt that I had entered the world of "real" coding. (Ultimately the "fix" was to completely discard the code and redo everything using proper testable modular code, but I digress...)

2015 Election: John Blischak

Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I feel I would be a good addition to the Steering Committee of the Software Carpentry Foundation because 1) I am a scientist that had to learn programming on the job, just like our target audience, 2) my experience performing many roles within SWC, most importantly as the maintainer of the R lesson materials, and 3) my goal to increase the collaborative aspect of our lesson development process.

2015 Election: Jason Williams

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

"You can trust in Jason, he's your friend!" — Decent People

I can't recall ever running in an election - rule by fiat is what "just feels right" to me. I have on occasion thought about running for office but I usually lack ambition (although I'm attracted to power). The fantasy of being the candidate people vote for even though he is clearly against their interest just makes my pedipalps tingle. So, when I learned about the Software Carpentry Foundation election, I thought, "let's try that!"

2015 Election: Jeramia Ory

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

At SciPy 2013, I had the good fortune to attend a tutorial lead by Matt Davis and Katy Huff. As an undergraduate educator in the sciences, I was immediately impressed with the people and excited to try their approach with my students. Matt encouraged me to complete instructor training, which I did in April of 2014.

2015 Election: Karin Lagesen

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I have been involved with Software Carpentry since I attended a workshop in Oslo, Norway, in 2012. I started out as a student, then went through the second round of instructor training, before being an instructor at my first workshop in 2013. Since then, I have organized one workshop and been an instructor at five others. I have also been involved with revamping the pre-assessment forms. This work has been very fulfilling and challenging on very many levels, and I now want to expand on my efforts by volunteering for the steering committee.

2015 Election: Sheldon McKay

Wed, 14 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

I started my career as a molecular biologist working in the data-intensive field of functional genomics, enventually becoming a full-time bioinformatician. With the perspective of a person who transitioned from the wet lab to informatics, I have often served as a liaison between researchers and software developers and truly enjoy empowering scientists by teaching them computing skills to accelerate their research. Over the past decade, I have contributed to a variety of outreach and training efforts in scientific computing. When I learned about Software Carpentry, its mission resonated with me and I wanted to get involved. I completed instructor training in May 2014 and have been an instructor at six workshops since then and continue to do about one workshop every six weeks. I also serve as a volunteer topic maintainer for SQL. I am very proud to be associated with the Software Carpentry Foundation and have a lot of experience to offer. I would like to contribute more to our ongoing success by becoming a member of the steering committee.

2015 Election: Aleksandra Pawlik

Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

My first degree was in Computer Science. When I started the university I had very little idea about programming. I struggled a lot. I graduated very discouraged and convinced that I just couldn't do it. But then eight years later Greg asked me if I'd like to be a Software Carpentry instructor. I finished the instructor training and I realized that had I been taught differently, maybe now I'd have a great career as a software developer. But then, I wouldn't be writing this blog post.

2015 Election: Raniere Silva

Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

A year and a half ago I read the announcement of the Mozilla Science Lab by Mark Surman and that way I discovered Software Carpentry. Months later, I was participating in the 6th round of Instructor Training, and since then I have:

taught at all 6 workshops held in Brazil,
improved the lessons and helped new instructors do so too,
suggested changes to the new layout of our lessons and helped in the transition, and
publicized Software Carpentry.

Volunteering with Software Carpentry is one of the things that I'm really proud of doing and I'd be honored be a member of the SCF Steering Committee.

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...

2015 Election: Matt Davis

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

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

In January 2012 I had the good luck to be in one of Greg Wilson's first workshops after he rebooted Software Carpentry in the current two-day format. I ended up as a helper in that workshop, and a month later I was in Toronto teaching Python as Software Carpentry's first volunteer instructor. Over the past three years I have:

taught at more workshops than I can remember
helped transition our materials from SVN to GitHub
written lessons and ipythonblocks
recruited and mentored new instructors
publicized Software Carpentry at conferences

Volunteering with Software Carpentry has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done and I'd be honored to continue helping as a member of the SCF Steering Committee.

2015 Election Nominations

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

As we announced last year, an election will be held on January 26-30 for the seven positions on the Steering Committee of the Software Carpentry Foundation. If you are a qualified instructor who has taught at least twice in the past two years, or have done a significant chunk of non-teaching work for Software Carpentry, you can both stand for election and vote. We strongly urge you to consider standing: if you're willing and able to commit to giving the Foundation 3 hours a week, you'll help thousands of scientists. It'll be fun, too: few things in life are more satisfying than working with a dedicated bunch of people to make something useful happen.

In order to stand for election, you must write a blog post to introduce yourself to the community by Friday, January 16. This post must be around 500 words long, can be written in any format (e.g. question and answer, paragraph text), and must be titled, "2015 Election: Your Name". It should explain:

what your background is,
what your previous involvement with Software Carpentry has been, and most importantly
what you will do as a member of the Steering Committee to contribute to the growth and success of Software Carpentry.

2015 Election: Damien Irving

Mon, 05 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Damien Irving has withdrawn from the election in order to focus on completing his thesis. We're grateful for his work on the interim Steering Committee, and wish him the best of luck with his PhD.