Introducing the new Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee for 2024

In February, the Instructor Trainer community held its fourth annual election for the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee, a Committee that provides governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of Instructor Trainers, and makes decisions on behalf of that community that affect our Instructor Training program and related policies. Previously called the Trainers Leadership Committee during its first 3 years of existence (2021, 2022, and 2023) this Committee will now be referred to as the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee to emphasise its service specifically to the Instructor Trainer community. In their third year as an elected body, the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee oversaw two important changes:

• Successfully delivered changes to Instructor Checkout Procedure, with widespread positive feedback. The Committee would like to thank all involved in this process for their hard work in making this major project so successful.
• The Committee established a lightweight process for Instructor Trainer Status Renewal in 2023 to streamline processes in 2024.

The Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee is especially grateful this year for the advocacy, dedication, and degree of community engagement achieved by previous Leadership Committees. Following the Core Team layoffs, a priority of the current Committee is reorienting ourselves within the organisation to best facilitate communication between the Core Team and the Instructor Trainer community. We recognise the significant value that Instructor Trainers bring to The Carpentries, and as we work to support the community we encourage all Instructor Trainers to keep sharing your voices and enthusiasm with us by continuing to sign up for the Instructor Training events that keep the community growing. Your continued engagement will help us know how we can best support you!

Bios

Jon Wheeler

I am a data curation librarian at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, New Mexico (US). In addition to consulting with researchers on the management, sharing, and preservation of their data, I lead a statewide network of Carpentries Instructors in the coordination and delivery of Carpentries workshops at higher education institutions across New Mexico. Sharing in the accomplishments of this statewide Carpentries community over the past five years has given me a great appreciation for the commitment I see at every level of The Carpentries - local, national, and global. I value the energy and enthusiasm that Instructors and Instructor Trainers bring to the workshop experience, and encourage everyone in the Instructor Trainers community to stay engaged as we navigate recent organisational changes. We look forward to seeing you at the monthly Instructor Trainer meetings!

Liz Stokes

I am part of the Skilled Workforce Development team at the Australian Research Data Commons, a government investment in national research data infrastructure. My role is to support trainer and research communities across Australia. As a professional boundary spanner, I love to make meaningful connections between people and different networks. Since 2022 I have coordinated a national partnership across Australia via a Carpentries membership, serving enthusiastically as an Instructor Trainer. I look forward to this opportunity to engage with our Instructor Trainer community, and give back to the people from whom I’ve learned so much.

Nathaniel Porter

I am the data education coordinator and social science data consultant in the Virginia Tech University Libraries (Blacksburg, Virginia, USA). A major part of my data education role involves coordinating local Carpentries-related programs, including 8-10 workshops a year, Instructor Training, and a community of practice for the 20+ Instructors in our community. I am also currently the Maintainer Community Lead and a Maintainer for Instructor Training, and as such I’ve served as an informal liaison between Maintainers and the Instructor Trainer leadership. I’m passionate about increasing opportunities for graduate students and early career scientists to integrate data effectively in their teaching and research, and I believe our Instructor Trainer community is one of the most effective groups on the planet at doing just that.

Annajiat Alim Rasel

Annajiat serves as a senior lecturer and program coordinator for undergraduate Computer Science and Engineering within the School of Data and Sciences, the largest school at Brac University, Bangladesh, under the umbrella of the world’s largest NGO, Brac. He is continuously learning from the students and colleagues. He is grateful for having co-taught courses on problem-solving, natural language interfaces and processing, data science, modeling and simulation, machine vision, parallel, distributed, and high-performance computing (HPC), ethical hacking, etc., along with interdisciplinary workshops and training events. The Carpentries community has been a source of immense growth for him. He is thankful to have had the opportunity to learn from everyone while serving the global community.

He has served as an Instructor, Instructor Trainer, mentor, Curriculum Advisor, Member of the Executive Council (EC, now transitioned into the Board of Directors), Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee, Code of Conduct Committee (CoCc), Instructor Development Committee, Steering Committee for HPC Carpentry Curriculum Development, organising committee for CarpentryCon, etc. Having joined the CoCc in 2022 and then the EC, he had the opportunity to serve both groups as an EC liaison to the CoCc during 2022–2023. He returned as a CoCc member in 2024 to continue the commitment of fostering a safe and inclusive learning environment. Looking ahead, he is passionate about bridging the digital divide, particularly through ICT4D, with a focus on ICT4ED. He believes in the power of open educational resources, free/libre open-source software, tools, and good practices for research, development, engineering, and education. This includes promoting diversity, democracy, transparency, localisation, accessibility, and other aspects of FAIR and CARE principles. Together, he dreams to ensure a safer community of practice, empower the community members, and build a larger Carpentries community in Bangladesh, Asia, and worldwide.

Md Intekhabul Hafiz

Intekhab has been an Instructor since June 2021 and an Instructor Trainer since March 2022. He has instructed and helped at a number of Carpentries workshops in the US/Canada zone, Europe, and Asia. He is working alongside Annajiat in building the Carpentries community in Bangladesh. He is a postgraduate student at the School of Data and Sciences at Brac University. He is also a computer scientist, engineering consultant and systems architect by profession working extensively with teams across geographical locations. He collaborates a lot of the work he is involved in using GitHub and several collaborative documents over the internet as well as well as within institutions. He has extensively participated in collaborative brainstorming, as well as management, training and facilitation of talent participation. In his spare time, he teaches computing techniques and programming to learners at primary and secondary schools and aids the elderly of the community in attaining technological literacy and proficiency. He will strive his best to serve as an effective member of this community.