Introducing Elizabeth Williams and Karen Word

This post originally appeared on the Data Carpentry website

At our recent in-person staff meeting in Davis, California, we introduced three new members to the team, SherAaron Hurt, Elizabeth Williams and Karen Word. All will be working with the Carpentries part-time.

Elizabeth has joined Software and Data Carpentry in a part time role as Business Administrator to assist with onboarding and supporting Member organizations and general business and financial operations.

Here’s what Elizabeth has to say about herself:

“After earning a B.S. in Cultural Anthropology at UC Davis, I have worked as a small business manager, a tutor, a bookkeeper, and an organization consultant. I am currently managing the Personality and Self-Knowledge Lab at UC Davis, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to dedicate my (rather eclectic) skills and passions to the exciting and worthy mission of the Carpentries community.”

Elizabeth has recently joined Twitter where she tweets as @ecwilliams8.

We are delighted to have Elizabeth join the team and look forward to working with her.

Karen Word is a post-doctoral researcher in Titus Brown’s lab at UC Davis. As a part of her work in the lab, she is working with the Carpentries on Instructor Training and will be the Deputy Director of Instructor Training. Karen will be involved with many aspects of the instructor training program, including training a new cohort of Trainers (watch for a call for applications soon!). As co-Maintainer of the Instructor Training curriculum (with Christina Koch), Karen will continue to improve and update those materials. She will also be actively involved in other curricular development efforts, including ongoing work on Data Carpentry Genomics and Data Carpentry Social Sciences curricula. Welcome to the team, Karen!

Karen writes: “I have built a career on roughly equal parts teaching and research, with happy periods of exclusive focus on each. As an educator, I’ve taught high school and community college, at museums and outreach programs, and have served at the university level as both a TA and Associate Instructor. My scientific research has focused on ways in which organisms respond to environmental change, with emphasis on hormone signaling and metabolism. Most recently I have served (and continue to do so) as a postdoc in the Lab for Data Intensive Biology at UC Davis, where I am working on program assessment for our in-house bioinformatics workshops. I am delighted to be able to bring what I’ve learned through all of these experiences to bear on the Carpentries’ mission.”

Instructor training is a huge part of our outreach effort, and we are delighted to have Karen assisting us with this important work.