Example Learner Profiles

Example Learner #1

Jose is a 4th year PhD student who is developing a framework for a computationally intensive problem. He took some programming classes as an undergrad and has started reading more books and tutorials on programming concepts and techniques as his passion for the work increases. He mostly works in C++ because that is what someone told him to do early on. However, he has been working in Python more recently. He is the only member in his research lab who is interested in software engineering. He wants to learn more and grow as a software developer.

Example Leaner #2

Alyssa is a first year postdoc in computational neuroscience. Along with some junior graduate students in the lab, she’s part of a small team developing an open software package intended to be used by other researchers. While she has never taken a formal course in programming, she spends the majority of her day working in Python. She has taken ownership of the codebase and wants desperately for it to be successful and adopted by the community. As the de facto leader of the group, she has come to the realization that her lack of programming knowledge causes her to question whether she is making smart programming decisions.

Example Leaner #3

Julie is a 3rd year PhD student in Molecular Biology who loves writing code and has recently decided that she enjoys programming more than biology. With a PI who views programming as an “evil you must pay to get your research done,” she feels like the only one who is prioritizing and interested in software development. She is starting to think that science may not be for her. She would like to learn all she can about writing good code, connect to a community who shares her passion and interest in research software, and have something to add to her CV that can help her pursue a career in research software.