"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

— R. Buckminster Fuller

WHO I am

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I came from Greece, I had a thirst for knowledge (but I did not study at St. Martins college). Instead I completed my undergraduate studies at Plymouth University, gaining a Bsc (hons) in Marine Biology & Oceanography. From there, I moved to the Department of Animal & Plant Science at the University of Sheffield where I have recently completed a PhD in Marine Macroecology, under the supervision of Dr Tom Webb and Prof. Rob Freckleton. After finishing, I freelanced as a Research Data Scientist focusing on producing transparent, reproducible, accessible and reusable research outputs for the teams I worked with. All this lead to finally landing my dream job as Research Software Engineer for University of Sheffield RSE where I help researchers to do more with their code and data.

WHAT interests me

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Coding

At heart I feel I’m a data scientist. I love to work with data, am fascinated by statistics and building diverse analytical outputs from data outputs to interactive web apps and visualisations. My favourite tool is the R statistical programming language (:heart: #rstats) but I’m excited to further develop my coding through my RSE position. I also help organise the Sheffield R users group.

Open Science

I’m excited to be a member of vibrant open science communities. I was a member of the inaugural Mozilla Science Lab Open Leaders cohort and a mentor on subsequent training rounds. I’m interested in how open practices and networks can:

• build capacity through peer to peer training, knowledge exchange and collaboration across open community networks.
• fuel open innovation and increase robustness in science through increased transparency, accessibility and reuse of research software and data.

Complex Systems

I’m fascinated by complex systems, they’re all around us. So despite moving on to software engineering, I’m still particularly interested in the statistical tools and methods that can interogate such systems and reveal how complex pattern and properties emerge.

WHY I get out of bed

I love to troubleshoot and am drawn to challenges involving systems and processes with a natural urge to tinker and refine. And as an ex-Quality Assurance auditor, I’m always concerned with system robustness.

I love to teach and mentor and have just begun my journey to becoming a certified Data and Software Carpentry instructor. Watch this space!

Finally, I am excited and positive by the rise of openness. Openness in data, in the scientific process, in access to information, expertise and advice, funding and markets. I’m under no illusion that these developments don’t bring new and significant challenges of their own. But I welcome them and look forward to joining forces with all the excellent folk working to realise Next Generation Open Science.