ELSI Blog
70 ELSI Summer School
In an effort to finish up my dissertation, I was not originally planning to attend the 2014 SEDI meeting. The moment I received the announcement for ELSI's inaugural summer school preceding the conference, however, I quickly applied and began booking my flight to Japan. The nature of my field of extra-solar planetary science is inherently interdisciplinary so I jump at any chance to sit down and interact with fellow academics interested in the origin of life in our Galaxy.
I've been lucky enough to travel to Japan in the past for a scientific conference but I'd yet to visit Tokyo. Arriving at Narita airport, I was surprised by two things: the heat (and I thought summers in Ohio were hot) and the ease of navigating the city. I arrived a day early to get my bearings but I was so excited to explore Tokyo that I didn't really notice much, if any jetlag. Upon reflection though, I doubt it was the excitement that prevented the jetlag, but rather the 14 hours of in-flight dissertation writing...
After a day full of walking, eating and learning the joys of Japanese convenience stores, I checked into the ELSI-provided hotel and later that day met up for the welcome dinner. After many beers, lots of food and plenty of conversation it was time to turn in. The next morning arriving at ELSI-proper, I was taken aback by the Common Room. I've spent most of my graduate work in a cubicle, so knowing that we'd be working in a wide-open space had me quite enamored with the culture of ELSI as a whole: truly interdisciplinary science is best done when scientist interaction is maximized.
The theme of ELSI's Summer School was based around software particularly open source code. While I won't go into the specifics of each individual talk, both days were full of useful discussion and made even better by the CIG provided USB sticks preloaded with all of the software, ready to go. I can't tell you how many hours I lose trying to just get software installed, so being able to essentially plug and play right away with the individual software was quite the boon. I often write my own code in the course of my work, which sadly often involves reinventing the code-wheel when the particular code I need isn't available publicly. Having the chance to receive an overview of many different open source packages in one place often with the creator in the room definitely heartened me to the future of open source science.
From the doldrums of dissertation writing, the ELSI Summer School was just the invigorating experience I needed to get excited for the next stage in my career. I absolutely cannot wait to integrate these software packages into my research. And perhaps even better, I have many new ideas for directions to take my research from the formal and informal discussions with my fellow scientists. ELSI is absolutely doing something right and I hope to visit again if only to capture some more of the lightning in a bottle they've harnessed there. Thanks so much for the lovely time!
