Announcing the #SciData19 Writing Competition Winners

We are proud to announce the four winners of the Better Science through Better Data 2019 Writing Competition.
Published in Research Data
Announcing the #SciData19 Writing Competition Winners
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Better Science through Better Data 2019

In ‘Better Science through Better Data’ (#scidata19) Springer Nature and The Wellcome Trust partner to bring together researchers to discuss innovative approaches to data sharing, open science, and reproducible research, together with demonstrations of exemplary projects and tools. If you are a researcher, this event will give you the chance to learn more about how research data skills can aid career progression, including how good practice in data sharing can enable you to publish stronger peer-reviewed publications. Tickets for the event have now sold out - but you can register for the live stream to watch our keynote talks as they happen from wherever you are in the world. Keynote speakers Shelley Stall Senior Director, Data Leadership American Geophysical Union (AGU) Shelley Stall is the Senior Director for the American Geophysical Union’s Data Leadership Program. She works with AGU’s members, their organizations, and the broader research community to improve data and digital object practices with the ultimate goal of elevating how research data is managed and valued. Better data management results in better science. Shelley’s diverse experience working as a program and project manager, software architect, database architect, performance and optimization analyst, data product provider, and data integration architect for international communities, both non-profit and commercial, provides her with a core capability to guide development of practical and sustainable data policies and practices ready for adoption and adapting by the broad research community. Shelley’s recent work includes the Enabling FAIR Data project, engaging over 300 stakeholders in the Earth, space, and environmental sciences to make data open and FAIR, targeting the publishing and repository communities to change practices by no longer archiving data in the supplemental information of a paper but instead depositing the data supporting the research into a trusted repository where it can be discovered, managed, and preserved. Her talk is entitled: Your Digital Presence Mikko Tolonen Assistant Professor Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki Mikko Tolonen is an assistant professor of Digital Humanities at the University of Helsinki. He is the PI of Helsinki Computational History Group (COMHIS). In 2015-17 he also worked in the National Library of Finland on digitized newspapers as professor of research on digital resources. He is the chair of Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries (DHN). His current main research focus is on an integrated study of early modern public discourse and knowledge production that combines bibliographic metadata and full-text sources. In 2016, he was awarded an Open Science and Research Award by the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. His talk is entitled: Integrating Open Science in the Humanities: the Case of Computational History David Stillwell Lecturer in Big Data Analytics and Quantitative Social Science Judge Business School, University of Cambridge David is Lecturer in Big Data Analytics and Quantitative Social Science at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School. David’s research uses big data to understand psychology. He published papers using social media data from millions of consenting individuals to show that the computer can predict a user’s personality as accurately as their spouse can. This research has important public policy implications. How should consumers’ data be used to target them? Should regulators step in, and if so how? David has spoken at workshops at the EU Parliament and to UK government regulators. David has also published research using various big data sources such as from credit card data and textual data to show that spending money on products that match one’s personality leads to greater life satisfaction, that people tend to date others whose personality is similar, and that people who swear seem to be more honest. His talk is entitled: Getting Big Data: Social scientists must strive to be autonomous from corporate charity. Tomas Knapen Assistant Professor Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam - Cognitive Psychology Tomas is a cognitive neuroscientist whose research focuses on the role sensory topographies (visual retinotopy, auditory tonotopy and bodily somatotopy) play in the detailed organization of the human brain and cognition. For this work, Tomas uses state of the art 7-Tesla MRI techniques. Early-career experiences where he ‘failed to replicate’ previous findings have impressed upon him the need to make research reproducible from top to bottom. Because of this, his lab uses only open methods and puts all their data and methods online. Having invested in these methods, Tomas is convinced that, in the end, it is not a burden to perform open science, rather it provides researchers with great opportunities for ground-breaking science. His talk is entitled: How I learned to stop worrying and love Open Science See the event programme. Meet the Programme Committee. Register for the live stream.

Congratulations to this year's winners and thank you to everyone who submitted an entry. The judges thoroughly enjoyed reading the diverse and thoughtful array of contributions. 

We are delighted to announce that this year's winners are: 

Jazlynn Tan

Topic: What are the benefits and risks of unrestricted data use?

“I am a second-year student in Biological Sciences at Imperial College London. I have been passionate about science and research since high school. With 2 years before I graduate, I am actively exploring different areas in biology to broaden my horizons and decide what to pursue in my postgraduate studies. During this process, I fell in love with data science and computational biology. That led me to participate in the Better Science Through Better Data writing competition where I explored some of the issues at the forefront of the debate surrounding data usage. I look forward to the various talks and meaningful discussions at the conference.”


Anna Holderbaum

Topic: What support do researchers need to implement reproducible research?

“I am a final year PhD student at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast. My research investigates the metabolism and hepatic effects of emerging anabolic drugs in sports, food, and laboratory animals utilising a range of analytical techniques. Having a keen interest in reproducible research, open science and data, I followed the Better Science through Better Data conference online in previous years and look forward to attending in person and reporting about it this year. In my free time I enjoy open water swimming, listening to audiobooks, and baking.”


Thu Nguyen

Topic: How should Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) data work in practice?

“I am a 4th year Ph.D. candidate in the Chemistry Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My current work focuses on using mass spectrometry to study the phosphorylation of ion channels and their roles in neurodegenerative diseases. I have recently learned about the idea of FAIR data through the competition and I am excited to have the chance of contributing to the collaborative future of science and data science. Outside of the lab, I enjoy reading books, creating art, writing, and exploring nature and new food."

 

Oriana Genolet

Topic: How should researchers be rewarded for data sharing and reproducible research?

"I am currently finishing my fourth year as a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Edda Schulz at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin. My research project consists in identifying the X-linked genes that lead to a slower developmental progression of female mouse embryonic stem cells, which are an invaluable model system for studying development in vitro.  

"My motivation for entering the better data through better research writing competition was the fact that data sharing and research transparency are crucial requirements for generating high-quality and reproducible research. Scientists are facing a reproducibility crisis; however, many are not aware of the scale of this problem.  It is therefore of pivotal importance that this subject is discussed among the research community in order to find proper solutions.  With this in mind, it is also valuable to find ways to motivate and reward scientists that recognize these issues and that prioritize the generation of high-quality research."


This year's entries were judged according to 4 criteria out of a possible total of 10 points:

  • Scientific rigour (0-3 points)

  • Enthusiasm/passion (0-3 points)

  • Writing style (0-3 points)

  • Does it answer the question chosen? (0-1 point)


The three judges for this year's competition were:

Varsha Khodiyar: Data Curation Manager, Springer Nature

Rebecca Grant: Research Data Manager, Springer Nature

Jack Leeming: Editor, Naturejobs, Springer Nature


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