Hi there! I'm Leah :)
I’m a Remote Sensing Ecologist by training. Data scientist and educator by passion. I develop and lead programs that support open science through community building, outreach and education. I am also an avid long distance mountain trail runner.
I build programs that support open reproducible science
Helping scientists build upon each other's work...
I build programs that help scientists process their data more efficiently using open reproducible methods.
Why re-invent a wheel that has already been painstakingly created?
Open and reproducible workflows allow scientists to build upon each others work. When scientists can reuse existing workflows, they focus more of their time in developing new analyses that in turn advance science more quickly.
Data science education should be open and available to everyone
Building maintained and tested open education resources for learning earth and environmental data science
Everyone should have access to in-demand data science skills. Publishing consistently maintained lessons and course materials online allows everyone with access to materials that will help them develop in job market demand skills.
I am passionate about helping scientists understand all things related to data and data science
We don't have to all suffer from imposter syndrome when learning data science.
Imposter syndrome is real in the science community when it comes to learning data science. I am passionate about helping people gain these valuable skills which are in high demand in today’s job market.
I designed and use a blended online & in-person teaching method which empowers students to chose the learning approach that best suits their needs.
All of my courses ultimately are published online as open education resources because not everyone has the resources to attend a college to learn these skills.
I design programs that support diverse groups pursuing careers in STEM
Supporting groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) is core to all of the programs that I have developed. This work inspires me to do more, every day.
To support programmatic diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility I:
- Apply adaptive, evaluation-driven program design.
- Let communities drive the program design based upon their needs.
- Try my best to always listen and support.
- Work to empower individuals when I see motivation and interest.
- Create content that is accessibility to a broad audience.
Blog coming soon…
Empowering students at tribal and hispanic Serving schools with Earth and Environmental Data Science Skills
The Earth and Environmental Data Science Corps (EDSC) was a funded NSF-HDR program that I designed and developed. The goal: to build build capacity to teach and to learn earth and environmental data science skills at tribal and hispanic serving institutions. While training and a summer internship were one part of the program, I believe that training alone is not enough. The program sought to empower faculty at institutions to add data intensive curriculum to their courses. The core of the program included a summer program where we provided training to faculty and students in open, reproducible earth and environmental data science skills. The program supported faculty in both learning the skills and adding it to their existing courses.
I development tools and build community around the open source tools that enable and drive open science
Free and open source software (FOSS) refers to free tools that make their code available to the public online. These free tools are critical as they drive an enable open science, by:
- simplifying scientists workflows and
- allowing scientists to more easily build upon each other’s work given the tools to run the workflows are freely available.
Over the past decade i’ve dedicated a significant amount of my time to learning best practices associated with using building open source tools.
And more recently I decided to dedicate my current career path to building community around open source software.
pyOpenSci: Open Source Python Software for Science
I founded and am now the Executive Director of pyOpenSci - a diverse, global community that supports the Python tools that drive open science through open peer review, training and mentorship. I am incredibly excited to be building this community and look forward to writing about the experience as I learn.
Recent ramblings from my blog…
Why You Shouldn’t Publish Open Education Resources (Or Should You?): Earth and Environmental Data Science
There is a huge number of open education / online tutorials that teach earth and environmental data science skills. However, these lessons will quickly become obsolete as tools evolve. This blog is about why simply publishing a lesson online is not enough.
How I Became an Open Education Advocate for Earth and Environmental Data Science
The idea of Open Education Resources (OER) and the field of earth and environmental sciences are not new. But the terms have become popular in recent years. While I only recently identified with these terms, i've been working in this space for years. Here I talk about how I discovered open education in the context of building online resources.
Three Tips for Building A Discoverable Open Education Website for Scientists
Open Education Resources (OER) referred to lessons and materials that are published online for anyone to use. Here I present a few lessons learned from my experiences.
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