We convened 22 people for the workshop in Banff from May 27–29; participant bios are attached to this report. The participants included 5 researchers, 6 tool-builders, 2 funders, 3 open-science leaders, 2 preprint / publishers, and 4 facilitators.

Workshop Participants¶

Anton Molina

Anton Molina is the Director of Open Source Ecosystem at b.next, the open core synthetic cell company based in San Francisco. At b.next, he leads initiatives to make Nucleus a robust open science ecosystem, which provides an integrated platform of biological materials, digital tools, and documentation for distributed, modular development of cell-free systems and synthetic cells. His work at b.next pioneers new models for scientific collaboration that reduce barriers between academic, industrial, and international participants in the emerging synthetic cell field.

Colin Ophus

Colin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University and the L&S Family Center Fellow in Energy and Sustainability at the Precourt Institute for Energy. His research combines advanced electron microscopy, computational imaging, and open-source software to understand materials at the atomic scale. He is the founding editor-in-chief of Elemental Microscopy, a new journal that publishes interactive, code-driven scientific articles.

Gabriel Stein

Gabriel is the Head of Platform at Knowledge Futures, a non-profit that builds PubPub Platform, an open-source platform for creating full-stack knowledge infrastructure. Prior to Knowledge Futures, Gabe founded Massive Science, a startup that taught researchers how to communicate their work to the public and partnered with scholars to study the impact of public communication using interactive web tools.

Ian Mathews

Ian is the co-founder and CEO of Redivis, a data platform that aims to make data driven research easier, more collaborative, and more accessible. He envisions a world where data are widely accessible, and believes that well-designed, researcher-focused software will be critical to making this happen. In his spare time, Ian enjoys backpacking the Sierra Nevada, may they forever remain outside of cell coverage.

Kirstie Whitaker

Kirstie Whitaker is the Executive Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). At BIDS she supports the delivery of innovative open source software and infrastructure to benefit science and society, including through the Jupyter and Scientific Python communities. Prior to joining BIDS in January 2025, Kirstie led the Tools, Practices and Systems research programme at The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. Kirstie advocates for equity, inclusion and justice as mechanisms to deliver the most impactful, ethical and efficient data science research and innovation.

Kristen Ratan

Kristen Ratan is an open science advocate and activist, leading Strategies for Open Science (Stratos) and Incentivizing Collaborative Open Science (ICOR). Kristen works with the US NASEM Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science and many philanthropies to implement and also study open science programs.

Lorena A Barba

Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the George Washington University, and faculty director of the GW Open Source Program Office. Past member of the board of directors for NumFOCUS (2014–2021), founding editor for The Journal of Open Source Software (2016–2021), and past editor-in-chief of IEEE Computing in Science and Engineering (2020–2023). Jupyter Distinguished Contributor 2020.

Louise Page

Louise is an open science professional with deep experience in aligning technology solutions with strategic goals. Currently consulting with the Gates Foundation, Louise is helping to shape and implement its open access policy. Over the years, Louise has held leadership roles at PLOS and HighWire Press (at Stanford University), and earlier in their career, worked with Wiley and Oxford University Press.

Matt Akamatsu

Matt is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Washington. His lab studies how force-producing molecules self-organize to shape cellular membranes. He is also the cofounder of the Discourse Graphs Project, which builds systems and plugins that enable researchers to track, exchange, and attribute discrete research results within and between research labs.

Matthew Feickert

Matthew is a research scientist in experimental high energy physics and data science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Data Science Institute. He works as a member of the ATLAS collaboration on searches for physics beyond the standard model with experiments performed at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. He also serves on the executive board of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics (IRIS-HEP) where he is a researcher and the Analysis Systems Area lead. His research has also lead to a strong focus on analysis reproducibility to leverage analysis reuse.

Michele Avissar-Whiting

Michele is the Director of Open Science Strategy at HHMI, overseeing the Open Access Policy and a new initiative focused on research communication. Prior to joining HHMI as a program officer in 2022, she held various roles at Research Square Company, serving as Editor in Chief of their preprint platform from 2020 to 2022. She earned a PhD in Medical Science from Brown University, where she studied the epigenetic mechanisms of carcinogenesis associated with environmental exposures.

Nokome Bentley

Nokome is a scientist and software developer with a focus on open science and research reproducibility. He is the founder of Stencila, an open-source platform aimed at supporting the creation of reproducible, data-driven research documents. His current focus is on making the use of AI in open science both more effective and transparent.

Rachel Lauer

Rachel’s research explores the dynamic relationship between marine life and the ocean–earth interface. As a submarine hydrogeologist, Rachel uses numerical models to simulate and quantify fluid movement beneath the oceanic crust, with a focus on how seamounts connect the ocean to its permeable crust. Most recently, Rachel played a key role in an international collaboration with biologists, policy researchers, artists, and others to investigate how fluid exchange supports life 3.5 kilometres below the ocean surface off the coast of Costa Rica. This work led to a TEDxCalgary talk, which was featured as an Editor’s Choice in 2024.

Taylor Gibson

Taylor leads the Data Science and AI programs at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a public, residential high school in North Carolina, that’s part of the University of North Carolina system. He is the technical advisor for the student research journal for the Morganton campus of NCSSM, the Morganton Scientific, where he promotes open scientific publication to our students through the use of MyST and Curvenote.

Tom Scott

Hi, I’m Tom I live in London and have been working at the intersection of technology, content and design since the early days of the Web. Since 2023, I’ve been PLOS’s Chief Digital Officer. Before I joined PLOS, I worked for the Wellcome Trust in London, where I led Wellcome Collection’s digital department. I’ve also worked for the BBC, Springer Nature and a bunch of other places.

Tracy Teal

Tracy is currently the interim COO of openRxiv. She’s worked in open source and open science as a developer, instructor, and project and program leader throughout her career. Previously she was the Open Source Program Director at Posit, the Executive Director of Dryad, and a co-founder and Executive Director of The Carpentries.

Rowan Cockett

Co-founder of Curvenote, where Rowan works at the intersection of science and software. With a background in geophysics, 3D visualization, and entrepreneurship, Rowan has developed tools that help researchers, students, and engineers work more openly and effectively. He has led software teams, raised investment, and guided startups through agile transformations—keeping one foot in the code and the other in shaping systems that advance scientific progress. He is focused on reimagining the infrastructure behind modern science to transform how knowledge is created, connected, and shared.

Steve Purves

Co-founder of Curvenote, engineer and technologist with a background in signal processing, computer vision, 3D visualization, and machine learning. He has spent his career building software for scientists, researchers, and engineers—often bridging domains and working across scales, from architecture to detail. Steve has led software teams, raised investment, and guided a company through an agile transformation. Currently focused on developing technology that enables new ways of supporting and advancing science.

Facilitators¶

Courtney Babott

Courtney is the co-founder of Wildly Open, a marketing consultancy that helps organizations navigate change with clarity, creativity, and purpose. She has led marketing efforts across diverse sectors, including science, tourism, and philanthropy, bringing both big-picture thinking and grounded execution. Courtney has supported organizations in reshaping narratives and repositioning direction at pivotal moments. Based in Canmore, she balances life with a toddler, volunteer projects, and the ever-changing mountain weather—fuelled, of course, by coffee.

Heather Szpecht

Heather is the co-founder of Wildly Open, a marketing consultancy specializing in tailored marketing and business strategies for organizations navigating change. With over a decade of experience generating demand and driving sustained growth, she has worked with brands of all sizes to unlock their potential and stay relevant in evolving markets. A proud local and outdoor enthusiast, Heather feels most at home in the mountains—just ask her for a trail recommendation.

Jillian Hale

As Product Lead at Curvenote, where she is scaling tools that help scientists share their work in more open, reproducible, and accessible ways. She brings a background in communications and digital strategy across higher education and tourism, having led cross-functional teams and launched platforms that delivered measurable impact. Now, Jillian is focused on building systems that empower researchers and elevate academic excellence. Outside of work, she enjoys exploring new places, relaxing by the lake, and practicing Spanish—a passion sparked during her undergraduate studies in Spain.

Jason Thompson

As an artist and entrepreneur, Jason is obsessed with innovating new ways of creating amazing stories that invite conversation and connection. Jason’s experience working with studios like Disney, Warner Brothers and Electronic Arts (he created some of the first designs for the Harry Potter game before the movies were conceived – imagine the pressure of getting Hagrid right!), provided the foundation for his consulting practice today, helping people tell stories that create action. Jason is also the creator of “The Art of Dad”, a visual storytelling one-man show live performance that explores the joys and pains of parenthood.