Ernest Guevarra opened the Community Call with his reflections on concepts and notions of community from his lived experienced in the Philippines as part of the call’s theme of “Tawag sa Katilingban/A Call to Community” leading up to introducing Noam Ross.
Noam started out by sharing with us when and how he got started with Open Science in general and with rOpenSci in particular. He then responded to a question on why open science was important then when he was starting out and why he thought Open Science is important now in his role as Executive Director of rOpenSci and given the current geopolitical context. We then transitioned to reflecting on the current state of global health and nutrition monitoring data and systems such as the DHS, SMART, and FEWS-NET to name a few that have been impacted by the demise of USAID and the cuts to other sources of funding. Finally, Noam closed off the call with his thoughts about the future of data and open science and what he thinks we should be looking into as a way of thinking and approach to responding to current challenges.
About Noam Ross
Noam Ross is Executive Director of rOpenSci, a non-profit organization that helps researchers develop and use R packages to better produce and share scientific data, methods, and results. Noam was a founding member of the organization’s software peer-review program, and also oversees rOpenSci’s work in training, mentorship, scientific infrastructure and multilingualism. Noam is a scientist whose work focuses on studying and forecasting the circulation of infectious diseases and their emergence in wildlife populations. He is also a co-founder of Grant Witness, an organization that tracks changes in federal science funding policy to inform journalism, litigation, and activism. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology from UC Davis.