2014 John Hunter Fellowship - Call for Applications

[Ralf Gommers]

Hi all,

I'm excited to announce, on behalf of the Numfocus board, that applications for the
2014 John Hunter Technology Fellowship are now being accepted. This is the first
fellowship Numfocus is able to offer, which we see as a significant milestone.

The John Hunter Technology Fellowship aims to bridge the gap between
academia and real-world, open-source scientific computing projects by providing
a capstone experience for individuals coming from a scientific, engineering or
mathematics background.

The program consists of a 6 month project-based training program
for postdoctoral scientists or senior graduate students. Fellows work on
scientific computing open source projects under the guidance of mentors who are
leading scientists and software engineers. The aim of the Fellowship is to
enable Fellows to develop the skills needed to contribute to cutting-edge open
source software projects while at the same time advancing or supporting the
research program they and their mentor are involved in.

While proposals in any area of science and engineering are welcome, the
following areas are encouraged in particular:

  - Accessible and reproducible computing
  - Enabling technology for open access publishing
  - Infrastructural technology supporting open-source scientific software stacks
  - Core open-source projects promoted by NumFOCUS

Eligible applicants are postdoctoral scientists or senior PhD students,
or have equivalent experience in physics, mathematics, engineering, statistics,
or a related science. The program is open to applicants from any nationality
and can be performed at any university or institute world-wide (US export
laws permitting).

All applications are due May 15, 2014 by 11:59 p.m. Central Standard Time.

For more details on the program see:
http://numfocus.org/john_hunter_fellowship_2014.html (this call)
http://numfocus.org/fellowships.html (program)

And for some background see this blog post:
http://numfocus.org/announcing-the-numfocus-technology-fellowship-program.html

We're looking forward to receiving your applications!

Ralf

[Nathan Goldbaum]

Hi Ralf,

Thanks for forwarding information about the fellowship. After going
over the fellowship description I have a couple of clarifying
questions

Is it expected that the proposed work will be undertaken at the
mentor's host institution? Would remote supervision and mentoring via
teleconferences, e-mail, and existing project management facilities
(mailing lists, github/bitbucket, IRC) be equally appropriate?

Is it appropriate for the mentor to write one of the two letters of
recommendation?

Most of my open source efforts have focused on the yt project
(http://yt-project.org). I'd be very interested in using the John
Hunter fellowship to fund full-time work on yt, which up to now I've
only been able to work on in my spare time or as appropriate for my
thesis work.

Is it appropriate to propose a project that isn't directly related to
a NumFOCUS project? I ask because right now yt isn't on the list of
NumFOCUS projects (http://numfocus.org/projects.html), although I
don't think it would be a big stretch to officially associate yt with
NumFOCUS.

In either case, would it be possible to get the ball rolling on
including yt as a NumFOCUS project to aid future funding
opportunities?

Thanks again for helping to put this together. This is an exciting
opportunity for young researchers who operate on the border between
science and technical computing.

-Nathan

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[Ralf Gommers]

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 9:06 PM, Nathan Goldbaum <natha...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Ralf,

Thanks for forwarding information about the fellowship. After going
over the fellowship description I have a couple of clarifying
questions

Hi Nathan, thanks for your questions. They're all valid ones; some I'm confident I can answer directly and some I'll have to check with the rest of the board. I'll make sure to update the FAQ on http://numfocus.org/john_hunter_fellowship_2014.html with the answers in the next few days.
 

Is it expected that the proposed work will be undertaken at the
mentor's host institution?  Would remote supervision and mentoring via
teleconferences, e-mail, and existing project management facilities
(mailing lists, github/bitbucket, IRC) be equally appropriate?

We'll definitely have a strong preference for working at the host institution, but whether or not we will accept remote working under some circumstances we'll have to discuss with the board.

Is it appropriate for the mentor to write one of the two letters of
recommendation?

That should be OK, although if you have more than two people that are able to write you a recommendation letter then you should probably use two that are not your proposed mentor.

 

Most of my open source efforts have focused on the yt project
(http://yt-project.org). I'd be very interested in using the John
Hunter fellowship to fund full-time work on yt, which up to now I've
only been able to work on in my spare time or as appropriate for my
thesis work.

Is it appropriate to propose a project that isn't directly related to
a NumFOCUS project?

Yes. The mission of Numfocus doesn't limit its scope to a defined list of projects. We'll be judging proposals on a set of criteria like quality of the proposal, quality of the applicant and mentor, and benefit to the wider community. Also, some of the areas of interest we encourage applications for aren't even covered by core projects.
 

I ask because right now yt isn't on the list of
NumFOCUS projects (http://numfocus.org/projects.html), although I
don't think it would be a big stretch to officially associate yt with
NumFOCUS.

In either case, would it be possible to get the ball rolling on
including yt as a NumFOCUS project to aid future funding
opportunities?

That's definitely worth exploring. I see Anthony Scopatz is a contributor to yt, and he happens to be a Numfocus board member. So probably he'd be a good person to discuss the options with. And you'll want to have a look at the Fiscal Sponsorship info on http://numfocus.org/donations.html.

 

Cheers,
Ralf

[Stuart Rossiter]

Ralf,

  Thanks for this very interesting call. Nathan's query (and your answers) addressed some of my questions but, for me, the main ambiguity was in the requirements for the applicant. You said in response to Nathan that "We'll be judging proposals on a set of criteria like quality of the proposal, quality of the applicant and mentor, and benefit to the wider community."

And Nathan had said how he was a significant yt contributor. But the call talks about "providing a capstone experience for individuals coming from a scientific, engineering or mathematics background" and that "under the guidance of mentors who are leading scientists and software engineers [applicants will] develop the skills needed to contribute to cutting-edge open source software projects while at the same time advancing or supporting the research program they and their mentor are involved in".

I read that as saying that the fellowship is for *non-software-engineering-savvy* (or at least non-open-source-savvy) scientists, where the strong-open-source-software-engineer mentor would teach them all this and allow them to turn their good software-related scientific ideas into well-architected open-source reality. Is that not the right interpretation then? What makes a strong applicant? It seems a bit catch-22: someone with great development skills is a 'good applicant' in terms of being likely to produce great software, but 'bad' in the sense of being 'over-qualified' for the fellowship. Is it more about the scientific value of the software?

And what about commercial vs. scientific software experience? One could be an experienced commercial developer without being an open-source expert. What would disqualify you from applying?

Thanks in advance for any clarification and, again, kudos for setting up such important initiatives.

Stuart

[Matthew Turk]

Hi Ralf,

As another yt project contributor, I think this is something we'd like
to explore. I'll follow up with Anthony offline and look at the "New
Project Applications" info on the website.

-Matt

[Ralf Gommers]

Hi Stuart,

Excellent questions. What follows is a long-ish answer, parts of which we'll add to the FAQ on the website later.

Our ideal fellow would be a talented scientist/engineer who is also a great developer, is new to contributing to an open source project, learns about and enjoys contributing to open source scientific computing projects, has a big impact during his fellowship, keeps contributing to OS scientific computing projects afterwards, and builds on his fellowship in the next steps of his career.

We want this fellowship to have an impact, and be regarded as prestigious. The fellowship aims several notches above an "extended length GSoC".

We think it's important that the fellowship has educational value to the fellow. It shouldn't simply be funding to do things that he/she was already doing before. The "How to apply" section of the call states that the proposal should describe the anticipated educational value to the fellow.

What disqualifies someone from applying:
  - having obtained a PhD more than 4 years before the deadline.
  - not being able to work full-time (except for exceptional circumstances that have to be discussed with the board).
  - not being able to agree to the conditions of the award, like making publications freely available.

Too much experience doesn't disqualify as a rule (can't quantify "too"), but there needs to be some educational component. If we get the impression that the applicant should be the mentor instead of the fellow, then that's not going to fly.

Ralf

 

Thanks in advance for any clarification and, again, kudos for setting up such important initiatives.

Stuart

[Taki Elliptic]

Hi Ralf,

I have a similar question to one of Nathan's.  Is it possible that the proposed mentor does not work at the host institute? I'm asking because currently I'm a postdoc at a university, while the proposed mentor is a software engineer and scientist in industry. We've been collaborating for several years on finite element solver development and have published together.

Best,
Yi Zhang

[Ralf Gommers]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 11:17 PM, Taki Elliptic <taki.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Ralf,

I have a similar question to one of Nathan's.  Is it possible that the proposed mentor does not work at the host institute? I'm asking because currently I'm a postdoc at a university, while the proposed mentor is a software engineer and scientist in industry. We've been collaborating for several years on finite element solver development and have published together.

That's actually two questions I think. The first is whether the mentor and host institute have to be at a university. While we haven't discussed that with the board yet, I'm confident that the answer is no (will double check that answer asap). The scientific Python community has had a lot of contributions from industry, and prefers BSD licensing for a reason. And in some fields, postdocs in industry are not uncommon. So I don't see any reason not to allow fellowships outside academia, as long as all stated conditions of the fellowship award are met.

The second question is the same as Nathan asked: is remote mentoring acceptable. There the answer is the same, we have a strong preference for mentor and fellow being in the same place.

Cheers,
Ralf