Speaker - Virginia Scarlett

Virginia's early career consisted of original research in plant biology related to biofuels, and she received her PhD in plant biology from the University of California (UC) Berkeley in 2022. Towards the end of graduate school, her interest in open science led her to shift her focus from biological research to research support. From 2022-2024, she was the Open Data Specialist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia research campus, where she advised researchers on data management, and was the primary author of a strategic report on the institute's data management strategies. In February 2024, she became the Open Source Programs Specialist at the UC Santa Barbara Library. In this role, she is conducting discovery work for the UC OSPO Network Project, an initiative funded by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation to expand open source support services at the University of California.