2018 Community Service Award Winners

The Carpentries Executive Council is happy to announce that Tim Dennis, Margareth Gfrerer and Toby Hodges received the 2018 Community Service Award and Fotis Psomopoulos and Malvika Sharan the special CarpentryCon Community Award. Thank you for contributions to the The Carpentries community!

Community Service Award

The Community Service Award was created to recognise some of the exceptional work by volunteers in our community. These awards are nominated by the community and selected by the Executive Council. “Exceptional work” can mean many things, for example, attending community calls when you have poor internet connection, changing your calendar to attend committee meetings or finding the time to not only teach but help support and coordinate workshops or Instructor training events. Some of this work is more visible in our community and others is more ‘behind the scenes’. All have made exceptional contributions, not just to activities, but to supporting and developing others in the community. The Executive Council is pleased to award the 2018 Community Service Award to Tim Dennis, Margareth Gfrerer and Toby Hodges for their tremendous work that together represents what The Carpentry community is and exemplifies our spirit of ‘further together’.

CarpentryCon Community Award

CarpentryCon was envisioned to be our first global in-person event to bring together newer and more experienced community members to share knowledge, network, develop new skills, and develop strategies for building strong local communities in an inclusive and welcoming environment. A first global meeting, let alone one with these broad goals, is an enormous challenge. Even with thousands of hours spent in preparation, we always have butterflies in our stomach until it happens. The Executive Council created this award to acknowledge the tremendous contributions from Malvika Sharan and Fotis Psomopoulos in establishing CarpentryCon. They did exceptional work in joining all the jigsaw pieces involved in organising the first conference, and their success inspired local events in 2018 and 2019 and plans for another global meeting in 2020.

Tim Dennis

Tim Dennis is the Director of the University of California, Los Angeles Libraries Social Sciences Data Archive and a certified Instructor since 2016. In that time he has organised, hosted and taught more than 20 workshops, been key in connecting The Carpentries and libraries, helped establish Library Carpentry as a Lesson Program and provided guidance on the Lesson Program structure. Tim is also a Trainer and has mentored many Instructor trainees through the checkout process where they appreciated his “warm, welcoming presence both online and in person”. He’s written blog posts to help newbies through the Git workflow to help those interested in contributing to Carpentries lesson development.

Margareth Gfrerer

Margareth Gfrerer works in the Ethiopian Education Strategy Center and has been a certified Instructor since 2017. She has taught 4 workshops already, but also has been key in building The Carpentries community in Ethiopia, managing the numerous workshop requests in Ethiopia since 2017 truly “mak[ing] the impossible possible”. Margareth’s work with The Carpentries is empowering women, librarians, IT professionals and many others to come together and to work-hard to change their and our community. “She’s a unique person, hard-worker, educator, scientist, a true helper.”

Toby Hodges

Toby Hodges works for the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and has been a certified Instructor since 2016. He has co-chaired the Instructor Development committee, formerly the Mentoring committee, since 2017, guiding that committee through the transition, leading the discussion program, creating pathways for supporting new Instructors and connecting current Instructors. He has contributed to guidance on how to help Instructors in their development as teachers. Many have “learned from him about hosting online meetings and trying to include everyone’s voices”, something key to inclusivity in our community and inspiring people to get involved and contribute to The Carpentries community.

Fotis Psomopoulos

Fotis E. Psomopoulos is a bioinformatician at the Institute of Applied Biosciences (INAB) at the Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH). He has been a certified Instructor since 2016. In addition to his contributions to CarpentryCon, he spread awareness about The Carpentries in the Greek academic and research community and has hosted or taught more than 10 workshops. For people that are interested in joining The Carpentries, Fotis is an example to follow as he continues to “help people in their research endeavours”. At CarpentryCon, he worked to include everyone in discussions and development of the conference while also organising, facilitating meetings and taking and sharing notes.

Malvika Sharan

Malvika Sharan works for the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and has been a certified Instructor since 2015. In addition to her contributions to CarpentryCon, she has taught Carpentries workshops at different locations around the world, including one of the first Train the Trainer courses in Argentina. Malvika has contributed largely to documentation and teaching material plus helped set the standard for CarpentryCon as a welcoming and inclusive event. “She has been actively and successfully promoting the incorporation of new members” that is amplified by her kindness, patience and dedication when challenges arose.