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Who’s who in the Zoo – Adam McMaster

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Adam McMaster, a Research Fellow working at the University of Southampton

Who: Adam McMaster, Research Fellow

Location: University of Southampton, UK

Zooniverse projects: Black Hole Hunters, SuperWASP Variable Stars

What is your research about?

I search archives of astronomical observations, looking for patterns which might be caused by interesting types of star or rare astronomical events. I work with so-called “time series” data, which is where measurements are taken repeatedly over time. In my case, I’m looking at how the brightness of stars changes over anything from days to years. In SuperWASP Variable Stars, we’re looking for certain kinds of repeating variability, such as eclipses and pulsations, in data originally collected by the SuperWASP exoplanet search. In Black Hole Hunters, we’re looking for a type of gravitational microlensing, where a black hole briefly magnifies the light from a star, and we’re currently searching the archives of the TESS exoplanet search, with plans to add data from several other surveys in the near future.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

The volunteers make our projects possible. We’re looking for the things that get missed by automated searches. Computer algorithms are great at finding a lot of things, but no matter how good they are there will always be things that they miss. Slightly odd looking examples, noisy data, and unexpected things that no one knew to program the computer to find. Only people can find these things, and there is simply too much data to look through ourselves.

In SuperWASP Variable Stars, we’re looking for stars that have been missed in previous searches of the data. The SuperWASP data can be particularly noisy, which can make searching it a challenge. We’ve found that people are really good at separating the noise from the real thing. We’ve written up and published some of the results of this project already, and we publish an interactive database of the results at superwasp.org.

In Black Hole Hunters, the microlensing events we’re looking for are expected to be the hardest ones to spot. Even with really high quality data, we expect the most interesting events to barely stand out against the background noise. That’s what makes a manual search so useful.

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

The Milky Way is predicted to contain millions of black holes, but we only know about roughly 70 of them. Those were almost all spotted because they’re not really black, at least in X-rays. They’re very bright in X-rays because they’re consuming matter, which heats up as it falls into the black hole. The vast majority of black holes are not expected to be feeding and should truly be black. Those are the ones we’re looking for! We can’t see the black holes themselves, but we should be able to see the effects of their gravity. That’s why we think gravitational microlensing is a good way to find them.

What first got you interested in research?

I have always been interested in science and astronomy for as long as I can remember. I had a telescope as a kid, and I remember going outside to look at the comet Hale-Bopp with my dad. I’m afraid I don’t really remember the first time I thought about actually doing research myself, but I took a rather indirect route to get here. Despite being interested in research (and almost doing a computer science PhD), after university I first worked as a web developer for a few years before eventually finding my way to an astronomy PhD.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

I’d honestly love just to be able to spend a day sitting and reading a book, but these days my children take up most of my spare time (and energy)! Maybe I’ll be able to do that again in a few years. Also, nothing beats a long walk in the country with the dog.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

It’s been a long time since it was active, but I always had a soft spot for the SETI Live project here on the Zooniverse. It was obviously unlikely to find anything, but there was something exciting about working on data in real time as it came off of the telescope.

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

If you’ve never done it before, talk to those of us who have! Especially when it comes to the Zooniverse, everyone is very friendly and happy to help, so there’s no need to try and figure everything out on your own.

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Patricia Smith

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Patricia, Community Manager of the Science Scribbler organisation.

Who: Patricia Smith, Community Manager

Location: The Rosalind Franklin Institute, Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire, UK

Zooniverse project: The Science Scribbler organisation

(photo credit: Ryan Cowan)

What is your research about?

As a community manager, I wear a lot of different hats! My formal background is materials science and biomaterials, but I’m now the ‘citizen science specialist’ in a lot of my day-to-day research. I work alongside imaging specialists, software engineers, and experts in a variety of biosciences to help them design interesting, effective, and worthwhile projects on the Zooniverse. Essentially, I make sure that the experts are asking the right questions, in the right way, for our volunteers to be able to understand and contribute most effectively to our research.

I also spend a lot of time supporting our Science Scribbler community and making sure our volunteers are the first to hear about any project updates or research outcomes. The rest of my time is spent working with teachers to support them in using citizen science in the classroom through our Virus Factory in Schools project, and dabbling in a little bit of my own research too.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

Most of the Science Scribbler projects launched so far have focused on 3D biological imaging data. When we ask questions about a particular sub-cellular structure or disease, we usually have to go through a process called segmentation: essentially colouring in every pixel that we count as being part of a particular class or label. Automated segmentation methods are constantly improving, but most of the time they still require a lot of expert annotation to either train or finetune the segmentation model. Creating this annotation is a huge bottleneck in processing all the data we collect. As a consequence, we usually have to compromise in some way: looking at a smaller sample size or asking less complicated questions.

Where volunteers help us in our research is in providing the annotations we need to train or refine our segmentation models. Once we have segmentation models that are working well, we can start to ask the really interesting questions – like what differences can we see in the mitochondria of healthy or diseased placenta? And what does that mean for our understanding of that disease?

But using citizen science to train or finetune our models isn’t just about passing the workload from a researcher to the crowd – it’s so much more powerful than that. One thing I’m really interested in is how citizen science can impact the bias in our models. If one expert trains a model, it will ‘see’ what that one individual sees. But if a model is trained on thousands of eyes through citizen science, it has the potential to be less biased than the expert, and who knows what that will bring!

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

We collect a lot of data at the Rosalind Franklin Institute. Recently we celebrated reaching 1 petabyte of Franklin data with a petabyte party (yes, there was cake). A petabyte is one million gigabytes – a huge amount of data for anyone to analyse – hence why we know citizen science is so valuable in our research. But what astounds me is how biology is at a completely different level; you can store roughly 215 petabytes of data in just 1 gram of DNA. Mind: blown.

What first got you interested in research?

I’m very lucky that I was exposed to a lot of science and engineering from a very early age. I think I decided I’d be a biochemist when I was just 9 years old, but in the end materials science stole my heart! There’s something fundamentally rewarding about being able to look at my everyday environment and ask: “How does this work?”, “What is this made of?” and most importantly “Why????”

In my role I’ve learned a lot about the impact science capital can have on a child’s attitude towards science and STEM careers. It’s part of why I think science communication is so important, and why I chose to work in a position that allows me to share my love of science with so many people.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

We livestream citizen science on Twitch!

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

I really enjoy hiking and skiing in the alps, DnD, board games, and a good flat white. I also spent a decade dedicating half my time to rowing – when I started this role I was working part-time alongside training as a full-time athlete.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

Too many to count! I’m always very nosey when a new project launches on the Zooniverse, so I try to submit at least a few classifications for each one. I really like using the Zooniverse app, so Gwitch Hunters comes to mind there. I also really enjoy the Etch A Cell projects, HMS NHS, and Monkey Health Explorer. The first project I contributed to was Civil War Bluejackets. Following the progress on the project over the last 3 years has been really easy thanks to their amazing blog and newsletters. They recently moved from full transcription (which I did a lot of) to correcting the automated transcriptions that were trained on our original work. It’s really cool to see the project progress in real time like that!

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

Getting a fresh pair of eyes on your data is really important in project design – sometimes you know the data too well and you’ll be blind to some really simple changes that will make your workflows much more straightforward. Remember to provide positive and negative examples – not just what you should do, but what you shouldn’t do as well. Finally, be ready to respond to your community in the early stages of the project. The first few weeks are really where you build out your FAQs and refine your field guide – especially if your volunteers find unusual examples in your dataset!

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

I wanted to say a huge thank you to our Science Scribbler community! Since our first project launched in 2018, you have contributed over 4.4 million classifications to our projects. That’s the equivalent of 10 years of effort from a full-time employee!

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Hillary Burgess

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Hillary, a member of our team who is involved in our work exploring the ethics of machine learning in public-engaged research.

Who: Hillary Burgess

Zooniverse project: Ethical Considerations for Machine Learning in Public-Engaged Research

What is your research about?

I am a longtime enthusiast of participatory science. This enthusiasm has led me to wear many different hats in this space – from project designer and lead, to volunteer, to researcher studying theory and practice of public engaged science. I’m currently supporting an effort to develop recommendations for running AI-engaged projects on the Zooniverse platform. As A.I., particularly machine learning, becomes more prevalent as a research tool and in other aspects of society, there is a mix of worry and excitement among the Zooniverse community. The recommendations will be responsive to the interests and concerns raised by Zooniverse stakeholders and will integrate best practices and learnings from the broader community. This involves engaging with experts in communications and ethical use of technology, Zooniverse leadership, and Zooniverse volunteers.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

Zooniverse volunteers are the reason for Zooniverse. We want to hear from as many volunteers as possible, so we can move forward in a way that reflects the diverse experiences and perspectives of this community. In fact, this initiative was born out of concerns about the use of A.I. on the Zooniverse platform. The funding Zooniverse received from the Kavli Foundation allows us to convene a series of four workshops to hear from a variety of stakeholders, including a few volunteers. But because the capacity for those workshops is small and not everyone wants to engage in a workshop format, we’re also sending out four short surveys for volunteers. Survey responses are feeding directly into our planning, and will be a key inspiration for the final recommendations for A.I. engaged projects on the Zooniverse platform. We need input every step of the way. Volunteers are also invited to share their perspective on Talk. We have had a phenomenal response to the first two surveys from over 1000 volunteers. Some of the questions are open-ended and I am fascinated and inspired by the diversity of opinion in these responses! Some people are really excited by the thought that they could contribute to machine learning, and a higher pace of progress toward research outcomes they care about. Others are deeply concerned about the potential for data quality issues and the environmental impacts associated with energy demand from running big models. Some express both, and all are valid and important to hear as we navigate this new frontier. As a relative newcomer to the Zooniverse community, reading the replies have given me many AHA! moments about what motivates people to participate in Zooniverse projects, and enormous appreciation for the passion and expertise among volunteers.

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

As a graduate student I worked with volunteers to study pollinator use of home gardens. After our training one of the volunteers discovered a bumblebee in her garden that was thought to be extinct.

What first got you interested in research?

I have always been a curious person who enjoys discovering patterns and connections and diving deep into topics that interest me. Around the age of 10, my teachers nominated me to attend a regional “women in science” day. I was one of just two students who got to go from my school and hear from career scientists. I came home with so much excitement about what felt like the adventure of science.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

I work from home and my two cats (Bubs and Little One), and dog (Mango), are constantly interrupting whatever I am doing with requests to play, eat, go to the bathroom, or sit on my lap.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

Outside of work I love spending time either at sea level on the coast – tidepooling, beach walking etc. or up high hiking in the alpine zone of the Cascade mountains. I love learning and trying new things, and dabble a number of creative outlets from pottery and gardening to DIY house projects. Lately I have also gotten into weightlifting, and sometimes playing cooperative video games.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

I first got hooked on Zooniverse through Snapshot Serengeti and AmazonCam Tambopata. Participating in the latter actually inspired a trip to Tambopata with my family in 2017. I also have strong tides to rigorous hands on outdoor projects like the University of Washington’s Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST) and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Monitoring and Assessment Project (MDMAP).

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

Don’t assume that your best volunteer audience thinks like or is motivated by the same things as you. Design for your intended data use and commit to a return on volunteers’ investment. Get feedback early and often.

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Mengyuan Li

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Mengyuan Li, who is part of the Node Code Breakers team.

Who: Mengyuan Li

Location: King’s College London, UK

Zooniverse project: Node Code Breakers

What is your research about?

My research involves integrative analyses of image and genomic profiling data to investigate metastatic development in lymph nodes.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

Zooniverse volunteers generated an amazing number of high-quality segmentations which we are working on to train models to assist our pathologists when locating the immune features we’re interested in.

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

More and more researchers are taking notice of these immune features, especially germinal centres in the lymph nodes.

What first got you interested in research?

The feeling when I solved or explained something with my own research makes me feel good.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

People never expect that there are researchers who don’t go to the lab, but instead sit in front of computers for the entire working day.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

Finding some interesting things to do and interesting places to go near to London at weekends. Buying beautiful dresses and doing research on makeup when I am on vacation. Video games, manga, cosplay and planning my next trip to Japan, when I have spare time!

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

HMS NHS: The Nautical Health Service

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

Try to think from the volunteers perspective; what will interest them? It is very helpful to discuss your project with non-experts to improve your project design and the wording for a more general audience.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Scientific research is fun, there are always some interesting shapes or patterns to be discovered!

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Marianne Barrier

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Marianne Barrier, who is part of the Monkey Health Explorer team.

Who: Marianne Barrier, Lab Manager, Genomics & Microbiology Research Lab

Location: North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA

Zooniverse project: Monkey Health Explorer

What is your research about?

I’m actually trained in genetics and using DNA as a tool, so I’ve had to expand my knowledge to other areas as we set up our Monkey Health Explorer project. This project is one piece of a larger puzzle being assembled by a collaborative group of scientists all studying different aspects of a colony of Rhesus macaque monkeys living on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. Our piece involves examining the blood of these monkeys to get a snapshot of their health, just like when we have our blood drawn at a doctor’s office. The data we collect about the blood cells is then examined alongside data from other researchers, such as behavioral or gene expression data, to tell more about each monkey.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

The primary focus of our project is to count the 5 types of white blood cells in blood smears in order to determine if these numbers are in the “normal” ranges for a healthy monkey or if they might indicate the monkey is sick. Our volunteers learn about the visual features of each type of white blood cell and contribute to our research by identifying the white blood cells in blood smear images from our monkeys. We then summarize the results from all volunteers to give us the white blood cell counts for each monkey sample.

In addition to helping us identify these cells, we have several volunteers who are trained cell professionals or medical or veterinary students who have given us additional insights into our monkeys. They have pointed out unique patterns in the cells that indicate specific illnesses, such as parasitic infections.

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

Rhesus macaque blood cells look very similar to human blood cells. I learned how to identify the cells in our project using training materials for human blood.

The “positive” and “negative” part of our blood types is called the “Rh factor” because that particular type of blood protein was first identified in Rhesus macaque monkeys.

What first got you interested in research?

I’ve always loved learning how things work and was a big fan of the TV show MacGyver because he could figure out how to resolve a problem by using items he had around him. This inspired me to think about how to approach a problem from multiple views and come up with potential solutions using standard and non-standard methods.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

The lab I work in is inside of a Museum and has glass walls, so visitors can watch us work. Sometimes when I step outside the lab, I end up talking with visitors about what we’re doing and answering their questions about what they can see, such as our DNA sequencers and liquid handling robot. We also have special events at the Museum where I have the opportunity to share about our Monkey Health Explorer project to visitors and also host teacher training workshops to show them how to incorporate our project into their classroom with the educational materials we’ve developed.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

My love of learning extends to everything – I read/listen to audiobooks (mysteries lately), have 3 languages going on Duolingo (French, Spanish, German), rotate between crafty hobbies (painting, drawing, knitting, 3D print design), play multiple instruments (learning drums now), and recently added 2 bee hives to our garden.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

I do love adding photos to iNaturalist as I come across new (to me) creatures and plants as I explore outside.

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

I would suggest spending time exploring several projects that have similarities to what you’re thinking of designing and use these as guides to consider what type of information you want to get from your project and how best to design training to make it interesting and accessible to volunteers. Also, make use of the Zooniverse Talk to interact with other project researchers to gain insights and learn from them. It’s a great community with a wealth of knowledge and experience!

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Ameenat Lola Solebo

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In this edition of Who’s who in the Zoo, meet Ameenat Lola Solebo who leads Eyes on Eyes ; a Zooniverse project that aims to improve how we monitor children with a blinding eye disorder.

Who: Ameenat Lola Solebo, Clinician Scientist (Paediatric Ophthalmology / Epidemiology & Health Data Science)

Location: UCL GOS Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital

Zooniverse project: Eyes on Eyes

What is your research about?

We’re asking Zooniverse volunteers to label eye images of children with or at risk of a blinding disease called uveitis. Early detection of uveitis means less chance of blindness, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for children to access the specialised experts they need to detect uveitis at an early stage (before the uveitis has caused damage in side the eye). New ‘OCT’ (eye cameras) may provide detailed enough images of the eye to allow even non specialists to detect uveitis at the early stages. Our research studies develop and evaluate OCT methods for uveitis detection and monitoring in children, and during these studies we collect a lot of data from children’s eyes – sometimes several hundred scans in different positions just from one child. We are hoping that we don’t need to keep on collecting this many images in the long run, but we have to know where and how best to look for problems.

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

Zooniverse volunteers are asked to label scans in different ways. They can tell us what they think of the quality of an individual scan – is it good enough to be useful? They can point out which features of the scan are making it poorer quality so that we can judge how useful it might be. They can draw regions of interest on the scan, helping to focus attention. They can also pick up the signs of uveitis – inflammatory cells floating around in the usually dark space inside the eye, looking like bright stars in a dark sky. They can tell us if they can see cells, how many cells they can see, and they can locate each cell for us. The quality judgements submitted by the volunteers have compared favourably to expert judgement, which is great. We have since developed a quality assessment algorithm based on labels from the Zooniverse volunteers. We are now looking to just how accurate the volunteer assessments of the images are compared to the clinical diagnosis of the child.

What’s a surprising fact about your research field?

Uveitis is often autoimmune, meaning your body turns against the delicate tissues in your eye — especially the uvea, a highly vascular layer that includes the iris. It’s like friendly fire… which is such an awful term, isn’t it?

What first got you interested in research?

I was tired of answering “we don’t know” when parents asked us questions about their child’s eye disease.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

Someone asked me how I put back the eye after doing eye surgery – ophthalmic surgeons do not, I repeat do not remove the eye from patients to operate on them! Also – I think that people may be surprised about how beautiful the eye looks when viewed at high mag. Ophthalmologists use a microscope called a slit lamp to look at and into a patient’s eye. The globe is such a fragile, well constructed, almost mystical body part, and vision is practically magic!

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

I recently started karate. I am by far the oldest white belt and I am really loving making the KIAI! noises.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

The Etch A Cell projects, because I learnt so much how to run my own project from that team and Black hole hunters, because they are great at describing what they have done with volunteer data.

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

Do it! And do it on Zooniverse, because the community is super engaged and the back of house team are so supportive. Stay active on talk boards to engage volunteers. And test, refine, test, refine your project until you start seeing it in your sleep.

And finally…

Thank you to all the volunteers who have been helping us!

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Dr Travis Rector

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Ever wondered what a Herbig-Haro object is? Find out in our latest edition of Who’s who in the Zoo with Dr. Travis Rector!

Who: Dr. Travis Rector, Professor

Location: University of Alaska Anchorage

Zooniverse project: Baby Star Search

What is your research about?

We are looking for Herbig-Haro (HH) objects, which are jets of gas produced by newly-forming protostars. They are important because they can show us where stars are forming right now. HH objects are quite beautiful and rare – only about a thousand of them are known to exist!

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research?

We are searching for HH objects in giant clouds of gas inside our galaxy using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory in Chile. The images produced by this camera are huge – 570 megapixels each – and are too big for a single person to look at. That’s where Zooniverse came in. We divided each image into smaller, 512×512, “cutouts” for people to search. We’ve completed the analysis and Zooniverse volunteers found 169 new HH objects! Considering only about 1200 were known to exist before this is a big increase.

What’s a surprising or fun fact about your research field?

Jets of gas occur in our universe on a wide range of scales. All of them are produced when gas is swirling around a central object. In the case of Herbig-Haro objects the jets are produced by gas moving around a protostar. These jets can extend over several light years. Jets are also produced by gas swirling around black holes. In quasars, these jets are powered by “supermassive” black holes and the jets produced can extend for several hundred thousand light years. What’s amazing is how similar all these jets are to each other despite the tremendous differences in size.

What first got you interested in research?

I first started doing research on quasar jets with Dr. David Hough when I was an undergraduate student at Trinity University.

What’s something people might not expect about your job or daily routine?

People often imagine that astronomers sit inside a dome every night looking through a telescope. In reality the telescopes we use have digital cameras and instruments that collect the data. Nowadays we can operate most telescopes remotely. So most of my research right now is done with telescopes in Chile that I can operate with my laptop computer from the comfort of my kitchen!

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

One of my hobbies is turning the data we get from our telescopes into color images. They’re a great way to share the beauty of the universe, and share the research that we do. I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and most of these images are available in the NOIRLab image gallery. Living in Alaska I love to do a wide range of outdoor activities, but my passion is for snow. In particular I love to cross-country ski.

What are you favourite citizen science projects?

For years I’ve had my students to the Planet Hunters TESS project.

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

It was a lot easier than I had imagined it would be to set up. Zooniverse is great about helping out, and beta testers also had a lot of important feedback. Once your project is up and running be prepared for a tsunami of enthusiastic volunteers who will have a lot of questions. We also had several volunteers to translate our project into other languages, which was great for increasing participation.

And finally…

Here’s one of our color images of one of the regions we studied looking for Herbig Haro objects (you can read more about this here).

A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Shaun A. Noordin

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In this edition of our Who’s who in the Zoo series meet Shaun, a frontend developer here at the Zooniverse. Grab a cuppa and have a read 🙂

– Helen

sketch-20230324-shaun-profile-picture-a

Name: Shaun A. Noordin

Location: Oxford, UK

Tell us about your role within the team:

I’ve been a frontend web developer since the ancient era of 2017, and I’ve been responsible for building and updating (and occasionally accidentally breaking) various features on the website. If it’s something visible on a Zooniverse webpage, I’ve probably tinkered with it.

What did you do in your life before the Zooniverse?

In between playing Super Mario and Zelda, I somehow managed to earn a Bachelor of Computer degree and landed a job as a web developer at a Malaysian news company. I then decided to move to the UK, partially to earn my MBA & find a new job, and partially because nobody else in my home country appreciates tea as much as I do.

What does your typical working day involve?

I start the day by saying hello to my awesome colleagues on Slack and find out what’s happening. Cat GIFs and emojis 🤪 are used to properly convey important technical information. Most of the day will be spent in front of a computer screen, looking at issues on Github https://github.com/zooniverse/ , debugging problems on the website, and submitting updates to our shared code base. Tea will be had throughout the day, because there is always time for tea.

How would you describe the Zooniverse in one sentence?

It’s people working with people to work on science to make the world a slightly better place, and it is awesome.

Tell us about the first Zooniverse project you were involved with

I built WildCam Gorongosa Lab, which was the supplementary educational website to the (then standalone) WildCam Gorongosa project. WildCam Gorongosa Lab eventually became a template for other camera trap-based educational programs, which are now available on Zooniverse Classroom: https://classroom.zooniverse.org/

Of all the discoveries made possible by the Zooniverse, which for you has been the most notable? (and why?)

I’m particularly impressed by the discovery of exoplanets, as with Planet Hunters TESS. Now, I’m sure the amazing astronomy nerds I work with might find the knowledge & technique pretty standard, but I was personally amazed to learn how – by observing the light of distant stars over a period of time and finding out when they regularly decrease in brightness – we could discover planets in distant galaxies.

What’s been your most memorable Zooniverse experience?

The semi-regular Zooniverse Team Meetings are always a highlight. I work regularly with my friends & colleagues from across the UK and USA, but I don’t always get to meet them… until the ZTM brings us all together in one place. It’s a great time to discuss project plans, plan long-term technical solutions together, swap jokes, and debate what’s the best kind of tea. (Japanese green tea with slices of strawberries, for a blend of light freshness and sweet fruitiness.)

What are your top three citizen science projects? 

WildCam Gorongosa has a special place in my heart as it’s one of the earliest projects I’ve been involved in. Creating WCG Lab was a great experience in understanding how the Zooniverse team worked, and the independence and initiative I’m given as a developer. As for the other top two, that’d be Planet Hunters TESS (because I built its unique light curve viewer component) and Anti-Slavery Manuscripts (because I helped build our first transcription project and learnt a lot of things along the way).

What advice would you give to a researcher considering creating a Zooniverse project?

When building a project, I’d share the same advice as writing code: start small and create a proof of concept first. Afterwards, keep iterating by making small and discrete changes until you reach your goal – and always test what you’ve built at each major step. Also, take consistent tea breaks.

How can someone who’s never contributed to a citizen science project get started?

As a complete introvert who’s always wary of social interaction, believe me when I say: just jump in. Or with more detail: if you’re interested in something, jump in, read all the instructions, be nice to the people you meet, and don’t be too shy to ask questions. If you’re afraid of making mistakes or not knowing what to do, don’t be – skills and knowledge can be gained with patience, but that enthusiasm you have to learn and contribute is something special that should be nurtured.

Where do you hope citizen science and the Zooniverse will be in 10 years time?

In space. I can’t wait to work in a zero-G office orbiting our planet, though admittedly the cost of the commute would be through the stratosphere. (But seriously: I hope the Zooniverse becomes more open and accessible to more people throughout the world. We’re doing a lot of work on adding language support and improving accessibility, but there’s still more to do.)

Is there anything in the Zooniverse pipeline that you’re particularly excited about?

We always have a few fun experiments from our monthly hackdays, but not all of them end up ready to enter the full production pipeline, alas. My favourite was an unimplemented “voice command mode” where you could classify images by screaming at your computer, “MONKEYS!” “FIVE!” “DANCING!” “DONE & SUBMIT!”. It would have been a great way to allow for hands-free volunteer classifications as well as make your neighbours wonder what is happening in your home.

When not at work, where are we most likely to find you?

When I’m not in front of a screen doing work, I’m in a front of a screen playing video games. I also draw comics (on a tablet PC), write technical articles (on a PC), and make my own games (again on a PC). 90% of my waking hours is spent staring at glowing rectangles, and if you know which The Onion article that joke was in reference to, I think we’ll get along just fine.

Do you have any party tricks or hidden talents?

I studied Japanese so I could better understand my favourite video games, but then I learnt that Mario is actually Italian. Argh! Boku wa baka desu!!

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I have no links to share, but I wanted to say thanks for reading all the way to the end. I know that not everyone understands my odd sense of humour, but this is why I love working here at the Zooniverse. My friends and colleagues are great people who encourage me to embrace my weirdness and eccentricities, because they trust that I always have everyone’s best interests at heart. This, in turn, motivates me to work hard to help build a better website for everyone. On that note, I hope you too find yourself welcome here in the Zooniverse!

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Coleman Krawczyk

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In this week’s edition of our Who’s who in the Zoo series, meet Coleman Krawczyk, who helps develop new analysis tools for Zooniverse data

– Helen

Coleman - Coleman Krawczyk

Name: Coleman Krawczyk

Location: University of Portsmouth, UK

 

 

 

Tell us about your role within the team 

I have been with the Zooniverse team for 4.5 years. I started out working as a front-end developer for two years and than switched to creating various data analysis tools used by the project teams.

 

What did you do in your life before the Zooniverse?

Before joining the Zooniverse I was a graduate student at Drexel University in Philadelphia getting my PhD in astrophysics.

 

What does your typical working day involve?

My typical work day involves researching new methods for analyzing data produced by Zooniverse projects, writing python code, and co-supervising PhD students.

 

How would you describe the Zooniverse in one sentence?

A collection of people working together to further our understanding of the world and the universe around us.

 

Tell us about the first Zooniverse project you were involved with

My introduction to the Zooniverse was reading the Galaxy Zoo 2 data release when I was in graduate school. I was so impressed by the project that when I was finishing up my PhD and saw a job opening as a Zooniverse developer I immediately dropped all my other applications and ended up submitting the Zooniverse one a month before the deadline (submitting anything early in astronomy almost never happens).

 

What are your top three citizen science projects? 

The Planetary Response Network – it is amazing to see the community come together to help out others in need.

Galaxy Builder – This project was developed by Tim Lingard (PhD student I am co-supervising) and has produced some amazing data to help us understand how galaxy spiral arms form.

Galaxy Zoo – This project is the reason the Zooniverse exists and paved the way for all the projects that came after it.

 

What advice would you give to a researcher considering creating a Zooniverse project?

It is easier than you think to create a project.

 

Where do you hope citizen science and the Zooniverse will be in 10 years time?

In 10 years I expect the Zooniverse and citizen science in general will be more integrated with machine learning allowing even larger data sets to be processed (I’m looking at you Large Synoptic Survey Telescope).

 

Do you have any party tricks or hidden talents?

I am good at working with yarn (crocheting, macrame, latch hook, knitting, etc…)

 

When not at work, where are we most likely to find you?

Playing video games, playing table top RPGs, reading books

 

 

Coleman is also involved with the Tactile Universe project that is helping to make astronomy more accessible to students with vision impairments.
Check it out here; https://tactileuniverse.org/

 

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Who’s who in the Zoo – Syracuse University Zooniverse User Research Group

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This week, meet the Syracuse University Zooniverse User Research Group – a team that works across multiple Zooniverse projects to study many aspects of citizen science, including what volunteers learn through participation and what motivates them to contribute. 

– Helen

group - Corey Jackson.png

 

Research Team: Syracuse University’s Zooniverse User Research Group

Location: School of Information Studies, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York USA

 

What are your main research interests?

Our group studies user behaviors in Zooniverse. Our research is centered on (1) understanding the complex and emergent motivations of volunteers who contribute to Zooniverse projects and (2) investigating how amateurs learn via participation in projects. Our research covers users in Planet Hunters, Higgs Hunters, Asteroid Zoo, Seafloor Explorer, and Gravity Spy.

 

Who is in your project team? What are their roles?

Kevin Crowston, Professor

Carsten Osterlund, Associate Professor

Corey Jackson, Ph.D. Candidate

Mabi Harandi, Ph.D. Student

Amruta Bhat, Masters Student

Dhruv Kharwar, Masters Student

Isabella Valentine, Undergraduate Student (REU)

 

Tell us more about the data used in your research

Our data comes from system logs, Talk posts, surveys, focus groups, and interviews.

 

How do Zooniverse volunteers contribute to your research? 

Zooniverse volunteers are extremely valuable to our research and in turn, enhance our ability to suggest features that encourage motivation and support learning.

 

What are the biggest challenges in your research?

One of the biggest challenges is learning more about newcomers and dropouts in the projects. These volunteers are valuable contributors to many citizen science projects. However, because they do not stay with the project for very long, there’s not much opportunity to interact with them. Understanding why they leave and how we can encourage them to stay can help increase contribution to Zooniverse projects.

 

What discoveries, and other outputs, has your project led to so far?

We’ve published more than twenty full papers, posters, and other publications based on user research in Zooniverse. You can see the list here (https://citsci.syr.edu/papers).

 

Once you’ve finished collecting data, what research questions do you hope to be able to answer?

Our questions center on motivation and learning. For instance, when newcomers join a project, informative resources such as volunteer-created discussion threads might be hidden across the discussion forums. We’re trying to find methods to apply machine learning techniques to bring these to the fore.

 

What’s in store for your project in the future?

Currently, we’re collaborating with the Gravity Spy project to design more complex citizen science tasks. For example, in Gravity Spy volunteers come up with their own labels to name phenomenon in the spectrograms they classify.

 

What are your favourite other citizen research projects and why?

We’re most actively involved with Gravity Spy. We’re currently working with LIGO scientists to design advanced citizen science work. We hope this research leads to the inclusion of citizen science tasks covering more phases of the scientific research process.

 

What guidance would you give to other researchers considering creating a citizen research project?

One of the most crucial aspects of a successful citizen science projects is engagement by the science team. Answering volunteer question on the discussion boards, organizing Skype meetings, providing feedback and keeping volunteers abreast of progress has been shown to encourage volunteers to remain active.

 

If you’d like to learn more about Syracuse University’s Zooniverse User Research Group check out their publications here (https://citsci.syr.edu/papers).