{"id":1129,"date":"2023-04-28T12:58:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T16:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2023-05-02T07:16:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T11:16:03","slug":"matlab-community-training-projects-in-neuroscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/matlab\/2023\/04\/28\/matlab-community-training-projects-in-neuroscience\/","title":{"rendered":"MATLAB Community Toolbox Training Projects in Neuroscience"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is a guest blog post by Vijay Iyer, Principal Academic Discipline Specialist (Neuroscience) at MathWorks.<\/span><\/div>
For folks in the Northern hemisphere, spring is in the air! If you\u2019re a student or a professor, thoughts may start to drift towards summer. There will be breaks & adventures of course, but passionate scientists & engineers will also be pursuing opportunities like summer schools, field studies, <\/span>internships<\/span><\/a>, and research sabbaticals.<\/span> <\/span><\/div>
This post is about another kind of (typically) summer opportunity for early career scientists and engineers: contributing code to open-source software projects under the guidance of a mentor. This road less traveled has become more popular in recent years thanks to initiatives like the <\/span>Google Summer of Code<\/span><\/a>program, which taps organizations around the world to bring together mentors and students to take on open-source software programming projects for a summer stipend. <\/span><\/div>
The INCF MCT Training Projects<\/span><\/div>
For the third year, the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (<\/span>INCF<\/span><\/a>) is organizing the MATLAB Community Toolbox (MCT) Training Projects over the summer. These training projects are sponsored by the MATLAB community toolbox (MCT) program at MathWorks, which is part of a growing effort at MathWorks to support the ecosystem of open-source MATLAB software projects, especially for research applications. The MCT program is actively supported by our team of academic discipline managers, including myself for the neuroscience discipline. <\/span><\/div>
The INCF MCT Training Projects will support 6 trainees for 7-week projects held sometime (dates are flexible) during summer 2023. Trainees are welcomed from all countries. The project work & mentoring will be all virtual. <\/span><\/div>
Open Call for Mentors<\/span><\/div>
The <\/span>2023 call<\/span><\/a> for mentor volunteers and trainee applicants is now live: <\/span><\/div>
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This call seeks to identify at least 5 willing mentors by May 15, so all 6 trainees can be matched by June 2. I\u2019ll act as a mentor for one of the projects, to be focused on <\/span>neuroscience data standards<\/span><\/a>. <\/span>Original authors, key contributors, and key sponsors of early-stage or well-established MATLAB community toolboxes are all welcome to step forward as mentors. Mentoring a trainee is often a fruitful way to explore new avenues or backburner ideas that can improve the capabilities, quality, usability, and\/or other aspects of the open-source software package. Mentoring of course carries some responsibility, which includes onboarding the trainee to their community toolbox, elucidating the project goals at the outset, and at least 2 rounds of feedback to the trainee during the project period (near the midpoint & end of the project period). <\/span><\/div>
All suitable mentors will be invited to post specific goals on the <\/span>project billboard<\/span><\/a> to help trainees identify 1 or 2 MCTs they are keen to work on as part of their application. Since coding and learning are not entirely predictable endeavors, it\u2019s encouraged to group goals into \u2018core goals\u2019 and \u2018stretch goals\u2019 to strike the right balance between aspiration & achievement. <\/span><\/div>
Early Call for Trainees<\/span><\/div>
Interested trainees for summer 2023 are also now welcome to begin their application with an expression of interest, plus a resume or CV. If trainees already have specific <\/span>neuroscience MCTs<\/span><\/a> in mind, even before the project billboard is populated, this can be indicated. The INCF (whose \u2018C\u2019 stands for coordination!) sometimes successfully tracks down a project contact to become or find a mentor based on a trainee\u2019s strong interest. <\/span><\/div>
Trainees are welcomed from all academic backgrounds, including both early-career neuroscientists with some coding background and early-career software engineers with an interest in neuroscience applications. <\/span> <\/span><\/div>
Matchmaking is an art as much as a science. The INCF has years of experience in coordinating with mentors & trainees alike to help find good fits for all the available slots. Once a trainee & mentor agree to work with each other, they inform the INCF to formalize the match. <\/span><\/div>
Trainees are entitled to a paid stipend comparable to similar programs if they make fair best efforts, engage with their mentors, and contribute at least one GitHub <\/span>pull request<\/span><\/a> (or equivalent).. <\/span> <\/span><\/div>
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Recapping the 2022 INCF MCT Training Projects<\/span><\/div>
In 2022, all trainees not only reached these goals but also had at least one pull request accepted, i.e., merged into the upstream MATLAB community toolbox codebase. In this way, they made lasting contributions to open-source neuroscience software. <\/span><\/div>
Last year at the program\u2019s mid-summer social, the trainees met each other virtually & took turns sharing about their projects. We were joined by <\/span>Mike Croucher<\/span><\/a>who shared some background on <\/span>research software engineering<\/span>societies, and the INCF community engagement officer Malin Sandstr\u00f6m. The INCF has a tradition of making a blog post after each completed training program. Malin\u2019s <\/span>post last Fall<\/span><\/a> highlighted the <\/span>6 trainees and the <\/span>MATLAB community toolboxes they contributed towards along with the Mentors who guided them:<\/span> <\/span><\/div>