Tag: Misc.

Letter from #UCDavis Profs to Janet Napolitano about possible sexism in responses to Chancellor Katehi’s activities

The current Chair of the UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate forwarded an email to UC Davis faculty today.  This email included a letter that had been send from from Linda Bisson (past Chair of the UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate) and Rachael E. Goodhue (Chair Elect of UC Davis Division of the Academic Senate) to the President of the University of California Janet Napolitano.  The letter’s overall message is concern about possible sexism in how the Chancellor of UC Davis is being treated in regard to recent events at UC Davis. 
I note – I have received many (over a dozen) private messages also expressing concern that some of the reaction to Chancellor Katehi’s activities may be sexist.  Mind you – most of these people are not defending the activities of the Chancellor but are concerned about the responses to her activities.  I think it is important for these expressions to be more widely viewed and thus I asked Linda Bisson if I could post it here and she said yes. 

From: Linda Bisson
Date: Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 6:43 AM
Subject: Letter to President Napolitano

Dear President Napolitano:

We want to express grave concern over a pattern of negativism in the press and social media regarding women Chancellors and senior administrative leaders. There are strong parallels between the singularly intensive criticism of our Chancellor Linda Katehi and that previously of Chancellors Fox (UCSD) and Denton (UCSC), and of UC Vice President Greenwood. Yet, the activities that are being criticized clearly fall within the standards of UCwide practice. This pattern is exemplified by a 2006 LA Times article that criticized compensation practices for senior UC executives: those singled out for criticism for “extravagant pay practices, perks and privilege for top executives” are all women (http://articles.latimes.com/2006/feb/16/local/me-cap16). The intensity of the criticism at the time ended in tragedy for Chancellor Denton. Chancellor Fox’s term was equally framed as fraught with turmoil, turmoil apparently not experienced by her male colleagues who were facing identical issues due to budget cuts and lack of diversity and inclusion. In an article in the San Diego Union Tribune written on Chancellor Fox’s decision to step down (http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2011/jul/05/fox- leaving-ucsd/?#article-copy), she is described in terms steeped in implicit gender bias such as the quote ascribed to former President Atkinson: “She handled that as well as she could have handled it” – not as well as anyone could have handled it or as well as it could have been handled.

Women in leadership positions are often the victims of intense implicit bias and, as a consequence, of the phenomenon of “single storyism” – the reduction of their actions to a simple narrative that appeals to the biases of a broad section of society, in this case implicit gender bias and women being incompetent for their position. Whatever they say or do in response is twisted to fit the “single story.” We think the LA Times article listed above illustrates perfectly the problem of the single story experienced by senior women administrators at UC. If the LA Times story were rewritten today, Chancellor Katehi’s name is likely the only one that would be added to the list.

All of UC is richer because of the participation of women and underrepresented groups at all levels. We know you and your leadership team share this belief. We are concerned that UCOP does not recognize that senior administrators who are identified with an underrepresented identity vital to our diversity are subject to vilification in the press simply because of that identity. We are also concerned, as recent press regarding our Chancellor Katehi demonstrates, that Chancellors and other senior administrators are not well-equipped to deal with single storyism, nor is there the recognition that others, such as UCOP, must step in to address the criticism as well.

The absence of factual information on UC policies and practices with respect to external compensation for all senior administrators has led to speculative and negative public debate regarding a single senior woman, when the practice of external involvement is widespread. We would like to request clear articulation from UCOP of both the formal policies and the informal practices as they pertain to executive compensation (e.g., have senior managers been encouraged to participate in activities outside UC). We note that legislators are calling for the same review. UCOP’s understanding of the broader issues involved is essential to informing these external discussions. The need for UCOP to take action is urgent.

We thank you for considering this request.

Linda F. Bisson, Former Chair, Davis Division of the Academic Senate, 2006-2008 & 2011-2012
Rachael E. Goodhue, Chair Elect, Davis Division of the Academic Senate 2016-2018

——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

——–

May 2: New Research Methods for Critically Engaging the Equity Question in Higher Education

The Provost’s Forums
on the Public University and the Social Good

Monday, May 2, 2016

New Research Methods for Critically Engaging the Equity Question in Higher Education

Estela Mara Bensimon

Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of

Southern California

Estela Mara Bensimon is particularly interested in place-based, practitioner- driven inquiry as a means of organizational change in higher education. Her current research is on issues of racial equity in higher education from the perspective of organizational learning and socio-cultural practice theories.

Dr. Bensimon has received grants from the National Science Foundation to study Latina and Latino students in higher education, the Bill and Melinda Gates and Ford Foundations to complete system-level work on college completion in Colorado, and the Teagle Foundation to examine the expanding role of private institutions in transfer pathways. Her publications about equity, organizational learning, practitioner inquiry, and change include: Confronting Equity Issues on Campus: Implementing the Equity Scorecard in Theory and Practice; The Underestimated Signi cance of Practitioner Knowledge in the Scholarship on Student Success; Doing Research that Makes a Difference; Equality in Fact, Equality in Results: A matter of institutional accountability; Measuring the State of Equity in Public Higher Education; and Closing the Achievement Gap in Higher Education: An Organizational Learning Perspective.

Previously, Dr. Bensimon has held the highest leadership positions in the Association for the Study of Higher Education and in the American Education Research Association Division on Postsecondary Education. She has served on the boards of the American Association for Higher Education and the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

In her lecture, Dr. Bensimon will discuss how the elimination of af rmative action has generated a strong and comprehensive line of research that documents empirically the educational bene ts of diversity. This movement provides legal and value-free justi cation for use of race in admissions to public universities. Despite its legal persuasiveness, this body of work has not eradicated inequity in higher education outcomes for subordinated groups. Professor Bensimon will analyze the intractable nature of racial inequity in higher education as an organizational learning problem. She will then discuss research methods pioneered by the Center for Urban Education, which seeks to assist scholars and practitioners to address racial inequity and remediate institu- tional practices and campus cultures, structures, and policies.

Lecture:

3 to 4:30 p.m. Multipurpose Room Student Community Center

Reception:

4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Upstairs Patio
Student Community Center

Bensimon_5-2-16.pdf

UC Davis Storer Lecture series – since 1963 87% of speakers are male

I wrote this blog post a while ago but never published it partly out of fear for upsetting some of my colleagues.  I try to be brave about such things, but I guess I just did not quite get up the poxy.  Well, today something came up that stimulated me to write the post.

I got an email announcement for a talk that seems potentially quite interesting. The problem is not the talk.  The problem is with the endowed Lectureship that this talk is connected to.  So here is the post I have worked on on and off over the last year or more.

UC Davis has an endowed lecture series- the Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences.  It has been running since the 1960s and is a relatively big deal on campus here.  The speakers come in, usually give one or two talks (one for the public and one for researchers).  They usually have a big dinner (I have gone to a few of these) and the speakers get a decent honorarium (a few thousand dollars) and some sort of gift.

Most years I have been here, I have received a request from the organizers for suggested speakers and every once in a while I have made suggestions, some of which have even led to invitations.  Recently, I had suggested a famous colleague who is also a UC Davis alum.  Alas, she could not come.  The organizers asked if I had any other suggestions and I sent them a list of a few candidates who are both very good, well known and do something related to microbes.  The organizers really liked one of the suggestions and asked if I would be willing to invite this person.

So I started drafting a letter.  And as part of drafting a letter I wanted to give examples of past speakers to show how great a set of speakers we had for this series.  So I Googled “Storer” and
UC Davis” or something like that and got to the page:

Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences

And that is when I got a bit heartbroken.  The speakers have been, well, very male.   I note I spent a while looking at descriptions of each speaker that I did not know to try and determine their gender, looking at their web sites if available, or how they were described (e.g., what pronouns were used).  I am pretty confident in the assignments though I realize this is an error prone approach.  Here is the full list as far as I have put together with the males labelled in yellow and females in green.
 

Oct 5-16, 1963 Ernest W. Caspari University of Rochester
Oct 17-31, 1966 Vincent G. Derhicr Univesity of Pennsylvania
May 7-20, 1967 Ernst Mayr Harvard University
Nov 3-15, 1968 Elizabeth C. Crosby Univesity of Michigan
Jan 3-15, 1969 W.D. Billings Duke University
Apr 13-23, 1969 Frank Fenner Australian National University,
Apr 5-19, 1970 A. Frey-Wyssling Eidgenossiche Tcchnische Hochschule
Nov 11-23, 1970 Carl L. Hubbs Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Feb 1-12, 1971 H.L. KornBerg University of Leicester, England
Nov 22-Dec 3, 1971 Hilary Koprowski University of Pennsylvania
Jan 17-28, 1972 George Beadle University of Chicago
Jan 17-28, 1972 Muriel Beadle University of Chicago
May 1-12, 1972 Sterling Hendricks Agriculture Research Service, U.S.D.A
Oct 16-27, 1972 George Gaylord Simpson The Simroe Foundation
Feb 23-Mar 9, 1973 Sir Alan S. Parkes The Galton Foundation
Apr 9-20, 1973 Peter R. Marler The Rockefeller University
May 7-18, 1973 George C. Cotzias, M.D. Brookhaven National Laboratory
Nov 6-13, 1973 Eugene E. Odum University of Georgia
Nov 12-16, 1973 Peter Alexander Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital
Mar 4-15, 1974 Davis A. Hamburg, MD. Stanford University School of Medicine
Apr 1-15, 1974 Kent V. Flannery University of Michigan
Nov 4-15, 1974 Garrett Hardin University of California, Santa Barbara
Mar 30-Apr 9, 1975 Kenneth J. Carpenter University of Cambridge
Apr 20-May 2, 1975 Murray S. Blum University of Georgia
Oct 20-31, 1975 Bert W. O’Malley, M.D. Baylor College of Medicine,
Apr 12-23, 1976 Sydney Brenner Division of Cell Biology of the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England
May 17-28, 1976 Peter S. Carlson Michigan State University,
Nov 22-Dec 3, 1976 Roger Y. Stanier Pasteur Institute,
Jan 24-Feb 4, 1977 Peter Albersheim University of Colorado
Feb 22-Mar 4, 1977 *Jere Mead, M.D. Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Harvard University
Apr 11-12, 1977 S. J. Singer University of California, San Diego
Nov 20-30, 1977 James D. Ebert Marine Biological Laboratory
Feb 8-15, 1978 Sir Kenneth Blaxtcr Rowen Research Institute
Apr 5-12, 1978 Eric H. Davidson California Institute of Technology
Oct 9-20, 1978 Jutgen Aschoff Max-Planck Institute for Behavioral Physiology
Feb 20-22, 1979 *Burt L. Vallee, Paul C. Cabot Harvard Medical School
Apr 24-26, 1979 Carl R. Woese University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign
Nov 5-16, 1979 Daphne J. Osborne Oxford University
Februarv 4-15, 1980 John F. Eisenberg Smithsonian Institution.
Apr 16-18, 1980 George E. Palade, M.D. Yale Medical School
May 5-16, 1980 Jerre Levy University of Chicago
Oct 27-30, 1980 Colin Blakemore Oxford University
Jan 21-27, 1980 Pierre Dejours CNRS
Feb 26-Mar 5, 1981 Richard Alexander  University of Michigan
Oct 20-27, 1981 Alfred F. Harper  University of Wisconsin Madison
May 11-19, 1982 Glenn W. Burton USDA-SEA
Oct 11-18, 1982 Richard F. Leakey National Museums of Kenya
Jan 6-11, 1983 Eric R. Kandel, M.D. Columbia University,
Oct 12-18, 1983 Donald S. Farner University of Washington
Feb 13-15, 1984 Daniel Branton Harvard University
Apr 24-26, 1984 J. Michael Bishop University of California, San Francisco
Dec 3-6, 1984 Maurice Fried National Research Council
Apr 3-8, 1985 John Krebs Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology
May 8-14, 1985 Geoffrey M. Ole Maloiy University of Nairobi
Oct 8-10, 1985 Michael P. Hassell Imperial College, London
Apr 21-24, 1986 John Maynard Smith University of Sussex.
Dec 1-4, 1986 Aldo Carl Leopold Boyce Thompson Institute
Mar 2A, 1987 Gerald Edelman The Rockefeller University
Nov 10-12, 1987 Jean-Claude Chcrrnann Pasteur Institute, Paris France
Jan 15-20, 1988 Jean-Pierre Changeux Pasteur Institute, Paris France
Apr 11-15, 1988 John I. Harpcr University College of North Wales
Oct 17-21, 1988 Rudiger Wehner University of Zurich
Oct 23-26, 1989 John C. Torrey Harvard University
Feb 26-Mar 2, 1990 Heinz Saedler Max-Planck-Institute
Nov 5-7, 1990 Francis Crick The Salk Institute
Jan 28-31, 1991 Thomas A. McMahon Harvard University
May 28-30, 1991 Lynn Margulis University of Massachusetts
Nov 18-21, 1991 Richard C. Lewontin Harvard University
Feb 4-6, 1992 Philip Leder Harvard Medical School
Apr 13-16, 1992 Patrick Bateson University of Cambridge
Nov 16-19, 1992 Melvin I. Simon California Institute of Technology
Feb 1-5, 1993 Anne McLaren Wellcome/CRC Institute
Apr 13-16, 1993 Judah Folkman Harvard Medical School
Jan 24 -27, 1994 Philippa Marrack National Jewish Center
Feb 28-Mar 3, 1994 Stephen O’Brien National Cancer Institute
Apr 18-21, 1994 Roy M. Anderson University of Oxford
Oct 31-Nov 2, 1994 Michael J. Berridge The Babraham Institute
Feb 6-10, 1995 Hal Hatch CSIRO Division of Plant Industry
May 1-5, 1995 Elaine Fuchs The University of Chicago
Oct 16-19, 1995 Peter Ellison Harvard University
Mar 4-8, 1996 Gottfried Schatz University of Basel, Switzerland
Apr 8-10, 1996 Daniel Hillel University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Feb 3-6, 1997 Peter R. Grant Princeton University
Apr 14-17, 1997 William J. Lennarz State University of New York
May 5-7, 1997 Carolyn W. Slayman Yale University School of Medicine
Apr 20-22, 1998 Floyd Bloom The Scripps Research 1nstitute
May 18-20, 1998 Ian Wilmut Roslin Institute
Jan 11-13, 1999 Leroy E. Hood University of Washington
Apr 26-28, 1999 Patricia Goldman-Rakic Yale University School of Medicine
Jan 30-31, 2001 Charles Arntzen Arizona State University


University of Oxford
Mar 4-6, 2002 Jan H. Hoeijmakcrs  Erasmus University
Apr 11-12, 2002 Fred H. Gage The Salk Institute
May 6-7, 2002 Phillip A. Sharp Center for Cancer Research, MIT
Jan 13-15, 2003 George M. Martin, M.D. University of Washington
Mar 10-11, 2003 Kim A. Nasmyth Vienna Biocenter
Apr 28-29, 2003 Tim Flannery Director of the South Australian Museum
Dec 1-2, 2003 William Greenough University of Illinois
Feb 18-19, 2004 Bruce Ames Children’s Hospital, Oakland Research Institute
Nov 29-30, 2004 Hans Herren International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
Apr 26-27, 2005 H. Robert Horvitz Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 9-10, 2005 Steven Chu Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Jan 24-25, 2006 Cynthia Kenyon University of California, San Francisco
Mar 14-15, 2006 Thomas D. Pollard Yale University
Oct 23-24, 2006 Mimi Koehl University of California, Berkeley
Dec 4-5, 2006 Simon A. Levin Princeton University
Apr 5-6, 2007 Sir Peter Crane, FRS University of Chicago
Apr 23-24, 2007 Stephen Quake Stanford University
May 14-15, 2007 Pasko Rakic Yale University
Mar 23-24, 2009 Sean Carroll University of Wisconsin
Apr 20-21, 2009 H. Allen Orr University of Rochester
May 19-20, 2009 John Doebley University of Wisconsin
Mar 11-12, 2010 Elliot Meyerowitz California Institute of Technology
May 17-18, 2010 Robert Langer Massachusetts Institute of Technology
May 11-12, 2011 Nina Federoff Pennsylvania State University
Jan 11-12, 2012 Jane Lubchenco NOAA
Apr 24-25, 2012 Ilkka Hanski University of Helsinki
May 30-31, 2012 Loren Rieseberg University of British Columbia
Oct 2-3, 2012 Ed Delong MIT
Nov 15, 2012 Jordi Bascompte Estación Biológica de Doñana
Nov 19, 2012 Simon Boulton London Research Institute
Jan 16, 2013 Ary Hoffman University of Melbourne
Jan 31, 2013 Jonathan Losos Harvard
Mar 18, 2013 Gloria Coruzzi NYU
Apr 10-11 2013 Peter Agre Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute
May 6, 2013 Richard Wrangham Harvard
May 16, 2013 Sue Carter RTI International
May 28, 2013 Larry Gold CU Boulder
June 4, 2013 Eric Schadt Mount Sinai
June 05, 2013 Nancy Moran Yale
Oct 28-29, 2013 Walter Bodmer University of Oxford
Dec 4-5, 2013 Ronald Kaback UCLA
Feb 24, 2014 Patricia Wright Stony Brook
Mar 5-6, 2014 Steve Carpenter University of Wisconsin
Apr 9-10, 2014 Jerry Coyne University of Chicago
May 20-21, 2014 May Berenbaum University of Illinois
May 28-29, 2014 Joel Cohen Rockefeller University
Oct 28-29, 2014 Charles Rice The Rockefeller University
Nov 19-20, 2014 Rolf Zinkernagel University of Zurich
Apr 15-16, 2015 Tim Clutton Block University of Cambridge
Oct 7-8, 2015 Richard Lenski Michigan State
April 22, 2016 Steve Nowicki Duke University

The total numbers come to 19 females out of 142 speakers or ~13% female and 87% male.  Ugh.

And the person I had suggested to invite was male.  So I wrote back to the organizers and I wrote:

From: Jonathan Eisen 

Sent: Thursday, June 11, 2015 11:34 AM 

To: XXXCc: XXX 

Subject: Abyssmal gender ratio of speakers in the Storer Lectureship series 

XXX and XXXX 

With sincere apologies but … 

In preparing a letter of invitation for XXX I decided to include some examples of previous Storer Lecturers. And therein lies the problem On the web sitehttp://www.dbs.ucdavis.edu/seminars_and_events/storer_lecture_list.htmlfrom my count, there are 121 past speakers listed. Of these, 15 appear to be female (from my estimate). That comes to 12%. That is embarassaingly low. I hope my calculations here are wrong. 

Can you tell me if the Storer Lectureship has any policies regarding diversity of speakers? If yes, can you provide me with those details.

If no, I recommend you implement one as soon as possible. Either way, I refuse to have my name affiliated with this series, and will not invite anyone to talk in it, without further information and without some serious attempt to figure out how to do a better job representing the diversity of biologists who could give such talks. 

Jonathan

They wrote back with a very detailed response and were very supportive of the concept of increasing diversity of speakers.  And they explained some of the efforts they had made in this regard.  And they really seem to be trying in some ways.  But in the end, their main justification for the lack of diversity was that they were trying to invite already recognized, in essence famous, biologists.  People who had won a Nobel or were in the National Academy of Sciences or were HHMI investigators.  And this pool, that they had chosen, was skewed in gender balance.

So I wrote back to them June 18:

All
Thanks very much for the response.

I understand you have some constraints and greatly appreciate that you are committed to trying to improve the diversity of speakers.  However, the end result is truly not acceptible in my mind and therefore I believe more needs to be done, urgently, to improve the situation.

What are some possible ways to improve the situation?

Well, the number one recommendation I would make would be to not constrain the pool to honorific groups that themselves have severe skews.  No we cannot solve those skews and there are many causes for them.  But I believe it is a major mistake to use the diversity of those groups (NAS, Nobel, HHMI) as a target.  Either invite people to represent diversity well even from a constrained pool, or, open up to a broader pool (there are plenty of incredible scientists who have not gotten HHMI, NAS, or Nobels).

In addition to opening up the pool and not aiming at such a low bar, there are many things one can do to improve the diversity of speakers.  I have written about this extensively as have many others.  I can point the committee to some of these articles if interested.

In the end, whatever the reasons are, the Storer series has ended up with extremely biased gender ratio of speakers.  I think it is up to the committee to fix this with a combination of actions.  But the first thing I would recommend is to not use the diversity of a set of pools you have chosen as an excuse.  We can and should do better and if the pools are the reason, the pools from which you sample need to be changed.

Jonathan

They wrote back, saying they were really committed to achieving better gender balance in the future writing “we are totally committed to the same goals as you in terms of gender balance now and in the future.” And they also wrote that they expected “the final lineup to reflect at least 30 percent or more female” as long as one additional woman (the person I had originally recommended) would come (though I had told them she said she could not).  And then they asked if I would reconsider inviting the man who I had been about to invite that had started this whole discussion.

So I wrote back again July 14:

Thanks again for the response. And though I do not want to continue beating a dead horse, I am not convinced we are doing enough in this area. For example, what explains the “at least 30 percent” and how close to 30% will that be. This is important as, for example, the National Science Foundation will not support their people attending meetings if female speakers are at < 33%. I think 30% is, to be honest, just not acceptable in biology. So beofre contributing any more to this series I need to know exactly what is meant by "we are totally committed to the same goals as you in terms of gender balance now and in the future.”

For example, here are some questions I would like to know the answers to:

  • Are you committed to achieving gender balance in the speaker series or just saying you are being more even than before?
  • Are you committed to researching and using diverse options to ensure diversity of speakers beyond just focusing on who is invited?
  • Are you interested in understanding why the series has been so undiverse in the past and addressing this directly or just moving forward?
  • Are you willing to address the lack of diversity in the past publicly and also discuss efforts to improve the diversity? 

I would very much like to know more detail about how serious you are to having a diverse series and what you plan to do to achieve this. 

With apologies, but in regard to inviting XXX or XXX. I am sorry but given the past record of this series, which as I said is among the worst I have seen anywhere, I am just not willing to be involved in any way until I see a stronger and more public committment to diversity. 

I am happy to help with the series and to help improve the diversity of speakers. But this should be done openly and publicly and forcefully. And without evidence of this, I am unable and unwilling to be involved.

And, well, I have not heard from them again.  So, I am writing this.  For many reasons.  But a key one is, I think we need to be more public about such issues.  And we just need to fix things that are broken.

So today I decided to make the post live.  I wish I had done this earlier.

Some responses

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fjonathaneisen%2Fposts%2F10154012819435767&width=500

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——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

——–

“Making Social Science Transparent” conference at #UCDavis 4/22/16: register today!

The Institute for Social Sciences at UC Davis cordially invites you to attend:

“Making Social Science Transparent: A Conference on the Issues of Transparency, Data and Code Accessibility, Replication, and Reproducibility”

Friday, April 22, 2016
8:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m.

Location: AGR Room, Walter A. Buehler Alumni Center, UC Davis

This conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Register now

For more information and a complete list of speakers, please visit the ISS website or see the attached poster. We hope you will join us!

MSST 4_22_16.pdf

Reproducibility workshop at #UCDavis May 4

Workshop for increasing openness and reproducibility in

quantitative research

There are many actions researchers can take to increase the openness and reproducibility of their work. Please join us for a workshop, hosted by theCenterforOpenScience, to learn easy, practical steps researchers can take to increase the reproducibility of their work. The workshop will be hands-on. Using example studies, attendees will actively participate in creating a reproducible project from start to finish.

Topics covered:

* Project documentation

* Version control

* Pre-Analysis plans

* Open source tools like the Center for Open Science’sOpenScienceFramework to easily implement these concepts in a scientific workflow. You can think of OSF as an electronic notebook.

This workshop is aimed at faculty, staff, and students across disciplines, who are engaged in quantitative research. The workshop does not require any specialized knowledge of programming. Participants will gain a foundation for incorporating reproducible, transparent practices into their current workflows.

Attendees will need to bring their own laptop in order to fully participate.

Date: Wednesday, May 4th, 2016

Time: Two Sessions (9am-12pm; or 1pm-4pm)

Location: Shields Library, DSI Classroom, room 360

Pizza lunch will be provided at noon for attendees from both sessions.

Please RVSP by April 8th as space is limited.

UCDavisPromotionalFlier.pdf

As more publishers require scholars to get ORCID id’s, the ORCID team to present on 4/20 at the Library

The Data Management Program at the UC Davis Library is hosting two seminars on the benefits of ORCID, an identifier for researchers, authors and creators. ORCID is now required by publishers like Science, PNAS, PLoS, EMBO, eLife, so this is an opportunity for faculty, staff and students in Ecology who publish in their journals to have their questions answered by Laurel Haak and Douglas Wright, Directors of the ORCID team. The seminars will be held on April 20th in the 2nd Floor Instruction Room in the Shields Library.

3:00 PM The Benefits of ORCID to Individual Researchers, Authors and Creators

4:00 PM The Benefits of ORCID to Research Institutions

Please, R.S.V.P. to vensberg.

Thank you,

ORCID_flyer_offical.pdf

Today at #UCDavis: Dr. Gitta Coaker on “Plant innate immune signaling”

Please post and distribute to faculty, staff and students.

Thank You!

Coaker.pdf

4/21 at #UCDavis: Interface and Intimacy: Software Prototyping for a New Media

INTIMACY & INTERFACE

Software Prototyping

for a New Media

Thursday, April 21st

2-4 p.m.

Data Science Initiative suite

360 Shields Library

This talk will explore the implications of “intimacy” and how it rubs against the dogma of automation in the computer science field. A selection of prototypes, work and sketches will be shown, re-imagining our relationship to archive and media, through a discussion about what it means to “interface” with the past, with the present, and with one another. Several audiovisual tools for analysis and exploration will also be shared and installed in the Digital Scholarship and Data Science Labs, for research uses within the campus community.

Robert M. Ochshorn is a Berlin-based artist, programmer, and researcher developing media interfaces for extending human perceptive and expressive capabilities. Ochshorn has a computer science background and consults for the Communications Design Group (CDG) Lab in San Francisco, founded by Alan Kay and Bret Victor on the model of Xerox PARC. He has worked in the Interrogative Design Group at MIT and Harvard, and has held fellowships in the Design Department of Jan van Eyck Academie and the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

For more information, contact Marit MacArthur at mjmacarthur.

Today’s Ecology & Evolution seminar: Carl Bergstrom

Dear Colleagues,

A friendly reminder. Today (April 14th, 4:10pm, @1100 Social Sciences) Carl Bergstrom from the University of Washington will present the Ecology and Evolution seminar. Carl’s research applies mathematical models and computer simulations to study population biology, animal behavior, and evolutionary theory and especially information flow in biological systems and the infectious disease. Carl’s seminar is titled "Anthropogenic evolution, externalities, and public health" and a summary of his talk is copied below.

Seminar abstract: Humans today have a major impact on the evolution of species ranging from pathogenic bacteria to charismatic megafauna. In some cases, such as conservation efforts, humans deliberate influence the evolutionary process to bring about desired ends. In other cases, such as the overuse of antibiotics, undesirable evolutionary consequences result as a side-effect of other activities. One common element of these cases is that the consequences of anthropogenic evolution are rarely fully encompassed by existing economic markets. In other words, anthropogenic evolution can generate both positive and negative externalities, which can be managed by legislation, taxation, torts, and property rights much as are other externalities such as public works or pollution. After briefly summarizing some of these mechanisms, I will show how a public choice framework from economics can be adapted to think about the positive and negative externalities generated by the public health measures. Such activities as vaccination and antibiotic use influence can both the trajectory of a disease outbreak and the evolution of the pathogen in question, and we can adapt the economic theory of public finance to account for the externalities generated thusly. In the final part of the talk, I consider how antimicrobial use influences the evolution of antimicrobial resistance for epidemic diseases rather than for the typical endemic settings in which this problem is studied. To do so, I will use mathematical models to predict how the timing of antiviral use influences resistance evolution and drug efficacy in seasonal influenza and other epidemically spreading diseases.

ORCID presentation on scholar universal ID system at #UCDavis Library on 4/20

orcid_flyer_offical.jpg

 

The Data Management Program at the UC Davis Library is hosting two seminars on the benefits of ORCID, an identifier for researchers, authors and creators. ORCID is now required by publishers like Science, PNAS, America Geophysical Union, IEEE, PLoS, EMBO, eLife and funders like the U.S. Department of Transportation and Autism Speaks. This event is an opportunity to have your questions answered by Laurel Haak and Douglas Wright, Directors of the ORCID team. The seminars will be held on April 20th in the 2nd Floor Instruction Room in the Shields Library.

3:00 PM The Benefits of ORCID to Individual Researchers, Authors and Creators

4:00 PM The Benefits of ORCID to Research Institutions

Let vensberg know if you are interested in attending, and, if possible, please, distribute broadly the message and the attached flyer.

ORCID_flyer_offical.pdf