We’ve interviewed another developer intern, Harris Mendell, who has had a hand in projects like the Zotero and Mendeley integration.
4th year undergraduate in the Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science program at UVA.
I play in a punk band which has sold thousands of records and played hundreds of shows across the majority of the US and UK.
Can you tell us what Open Science means?
Open Science is a movement to make scientific research accessible to all who are curious. It is a counter to the increasing presence of pay-walled articles and content in scientific journals.
What drew you to COS?
Coming out of college I knew I wanted to work for a company whose primary motivation was not money. Building infrastructure to support the pursuit of better scientific practices was something I could definitively get behind. Additionally, I knew there were a lot of really smart people here who I could learn from, and that has definitely been the case.
Describe some of your day-to-day duties and responsibilities. Why are they important?
Since January, the majority of my time at COS has been spent building add-ons for the Open Science Framework. Broadening the scope of what the framework is capable of is really important in convincing researchers that the OSF is a platform which is not only morally awesome, but technically awesome, complete with plenty of quality-of-life improvements over their current practices. When I’m not working on one of these add-ons I’m probably fixing bugs, or bettering myself as a software engineer by learning about and practicing a new language or framework that is integral to what we do here.
What is the OSF and why is it important?
The OSF is a platform for researchers to engage with all aspects of their research’s life cycle. It facilitates collaboration, connections with existing frameworks via add-ons, and control over the privacy of every individual part of their data. This system is vital in achieving the Center’s pursuit of furthering openness and integrity in scientific research. It allows researchers a separate path from the traditional peer-reviewed life cycle.
What are you working on right now?
Just last week the primary add-ons I was involved with, Zotero and Mendeley, went live. That means that currently I’m working on bug fixes for stuff on the production server, and will start a new primary project when I get back from spring break.
What type of projects to interns generally get to work on here?
It seems like interns get placed on a variety of different projects during their time at the center. As I previously mentioned I was first put on a team developing an add-on for reference manager tools, but my friend Casey is currently working on a better system for rendering PDFs on the framework, and Robert is working on a public wiki system. In terms of developer interns, I believe we are all working on the OSF, but there is a ton of variety in what were doing on the platform.
Do you like living in Charlottesville, VA? Charlottesville is a small town, but there is always a lot going on. It’s beautiful, and generally a fun place to work, go to school, and live!
Because this office is addicted to good food, do you have a favorite place to eat in C-ville? My favorite restaurant in Charlottesville is hands down Milan, an Indian restaurant out on 29.
What type of music are you currently listening to?
Right now I’m really enjoying a new 7” I just got by a band called Dogs on Acid, I’ve also been listening to a lot of Pavement, most important band to come out of Charlottesville!
