SoSEA
Monday 16th April saw the launch of the first of a set of events that are replicating SoNYC’s model to other locations in the US and Canada. Science Online Seattle (#SoSEA) co-organised by Liz Neeley, Jen Davison and Brian Glanz was the first of these and hosted a well-attended debate on, Shared Science: new realities for research and outreach in a networked world. You can find a few of the take home messages, as well as a summary and a Storify created by the SoSEA team here.
The second #SoSEA event is hoping to be just as successful and is taking place today, Monday 14th May, and will discuss: Dances with Data– Tools for turning information into visual stories.
With the accelerating accessibility of data, from satellite imagery, genomics and all ‘omics, digitized historical records, and more, answering research questions is now as much about working — and playing — with existing data as about gathering new data. What are the most effective ways to explore your data and extract meaning from it? How can others — scientists, managers, the public – explore or even contribute to the data behind your graphics? At this month’s #sosea we will highlight some of the slickest tools and methods for creating insights from data, and discuss what is — and isn’t — changing about data visualization in an age of informatics and open science.
The panelists:
- Eugene Kolker, Chief Data Officer at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Co-Founder and President of Data-Enabled Life Sciences Alliance International. The Kolker Lab’s work is on data-enabled science, predictive analytics, biomedical, bio- and health informatics, high-throughput analyses, and proteomics. Their work in predictive analytics includes exploring factors that influence the health and care of patients, strategic development and resource management of Seattle Children’s Hospital, the national levels of support for the sciences, as well as economic modeling of Seattle. DELSA Global is a community-based, but international initiative to connect experts, share data, and democratize science.
- Dustin Smith, Senior Product Consultant at Tableau. Justin’s whole job is to play with data! He works closely with Tableau Public & Digital products.
- Hunter Hadaway, Creative Director at Center for Environmental Visualization. The custodian of creative cleanup, Hunter manages the design, development and deployment of all aspects of CEV’s graphical output. His specialties are graphic design, 3-D modeling, animation, interface design, web development, and video design/editing.
- Rob Fatland, Microsoft Research Connections research program manager. Rob has beencalled the “evangelist of Layerscape“, a product that allows earth scientists to analyze and visualize giant loads of data.
If you can’t attend, the event will be streamed here and you can follow the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #SoSEA.
SoVan
The second event to keep an eye on this week is Science Online Vancouver’s (SoVan’s) second event on Tuesday15th May where the discussion topic is Making Contact:.
Do you have facts that could could clear up confusion or an informed opinion to share? Do you know the question whose answer would help you and others better understand the issue? How do you contribute your knowledge and expertise to your community? Social media is supposed to make it easy but how to you pick between Facebook friends, twitter hashtags, google circles, blog posts and countless other online options?
In the 2nd ScienceOnlineVancouver event on Tuesday, May 15, [updated — it’s on the 15th, not the 17th] you’ll meet people who successfully use social media to communicate with their professional communities, Eric Michael Johnson (@ericmjohnson, primatediaries.com) and Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco, raulpacheco.org) They’ll describe what they do, what works (and what doesn’t.) You’ll have a chance to ask questions and share what you know, whether you’re a professional blogger or just-got-a-twitter-account-now-what-do-I-do?
The event will be live-streamed to give as many people as possible the chance to take part in the debate. You can check out last month’s livestream archive here and you can find a summary and a Storify from their first event here. SoVAN’ has a website as well as pages on Facebook and on Google+, so make sure you join in the conversation.
Tweetups and Beer!
Science Tweetups provide an excellent opportunity to meet local scientists and science communicators for an evening of chatting in the pub. For those interested in the next #camscitweet, this will be held on Saturday May 26th and will be a special #SciBeerCamb celebration, coinciding with the Cambridge Beer Festival. So if you like beer and science, do feel free to join us in person at the festival (details will be announced soon) or check out the online conversations using the hashtags.
For those on the other side of the Atlantic, keep an eye on the #DCscitweetup and #NYCscitweetup. The next #NYCscitweetup will coincide with this year’s World Science Festival and will take place on the 2nd June, details can be found on their Facebook page.
#IamScience Story Collider Event
Co-founded by Ben Lille, The Story Collider in New York gives select scientists and science communicators an opportunity to share their experiences on a particular topic. They will soon be celebrating their two year anniversary and you can join their birthday celebrations on May 22nd at the Bell House in Brooklyn. They are hosting a special “IAmScience” event on the twisted and unorthodox paths to careers in science.
Details can be found via their Facebook event and to read more about, The Story Collider you can check out Ben Lille’s guest post, On Science and Social Media – #IAmScience and the unexpected tweets.
Science Communication Conference
Today is the first day of the annual two-day Science Communication Conference organised by the British Science Association in association with the Wellcome Trust.
Held at Kings Place in London, the conference features two days of sessions with speakers and panel events on a whole range of topics all loosely themed around this year’s theme of ‘Impact’. You can find out more in the London Blog and sessions begin at 9am, so if you can’t attend in person, you can follow all the action on the conference twitter feed @SciCommConf and on the hashtag #scicom12.
Events elsewhere
Our scientific events calendars have been freshly updated to include the latest scientific events. Make sure you check them out. Please do get in touch if we are missing any events or if you would like to contribute to this calendar or any of the other calendars listed below.