Virtual Winter School on Computational Chemistry
Dr Karmen Čondić-Jurkić
Open Molecular Software Foundation, New Zealand
There is so much more to doing science than journal publications or grant applications, but those are the parts that often get the most attention and rewards. In this talk, I would like to discuss other forces that largely shape our research and thinking, but generally stay out of the spotlight in our field – project (and people) management and research infrastructure, as perceived by a computational chemist-turned-project manager-turned-nonprofit director. Project management and research infrastructure have become even more important in this era of information overload and global connectivity enabling large-scale collaborations, where clarity can quickly become an elusive and scarce resource. I will share some thoughts and lessons learned from managing my own research projects to working with a distributed team on research software development.
It seems that it's not possible to publish links with comments, but the workaround is to post a pure text comment and come back later to edit (and add links). Leaving this comment here in case anyone else bumped into the same issue while trying to leave a comment!
Hi Karmen,
My apologies for the inconvenience.
Indeed it was not possible to have hyperlinks within the comments (because it was meant like that and nobody asked for that feature last year).
But I hear that links can be useful so I have now allowed them. Technically:
Ha, thanks a lot, I can see the button!
I shared my slides (pptx, pdf) on Zenodo under CC-BY and they can be reused and modified: https://zenodo.org/record/6212784.
The original slides were made in Canva and this presentation can be used as a template: https://www.canva.com/design/DAE4pyQy28I/ZSuWS3Ro7bRWuYC4VFSWbQ/view?utm_content=DAE4pyQy28I&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton&mode=preview.
Slides uploaded (thanks, Karmen). Recording, hopefully on it's way.
Clelia, please feel free to start a discussion on what thoughts were most provocative. And tell us where you're from. I am wondering about the experiences from different ccountries.
Hi Rika - for reference, I am from the United Kingdom and a PhD working on yet another a machine learning project! I very much enjoyed Karmen's discussion of the challenges to time management and scope creep - where expansive and diffuse ambitions are actually dampeners to performing successful work, even if they are a result of inspired thinking, and the acknowledgement of coordination overhead when collaborating within a group. These sort of very relevant project management challenges haven't really been articulated to me so well before so it's helped me to reevaluate the use of my time quite constructively.
Thanks to Karmen for a thought-provoking and invigorating talk. Wondering whether the presentation slides have been uploaded centrally for future reference?