2025-11-09 –, Room 121
Looking to contribute to open source, but wasn’t sure where to start? Want to level up your skills in debugging, programming, collaboration and more? Curious about how to fix a bug or add a feature you’re missing in your favorite software project? Come to our special newcomer sprint to learn how and try it for yourself! Newcomers to Python or open source are welcome and encouraged, as well as attendees with open source experience to help guide them!
Led by Python and Spyder core developer C.A.M. Gerlach, the inaugural Newcomer Sprint will feature a welcoming environment with mentors, resources and swag to help make everyone’s experience a success, no matter your skill level or prior knowledge!
We encourage both newcomers to Python or open source as mentees, as well as attendees with open source experience (no project-specific expertise required) to help serve as additional mentors and guide our newcomers through the steps of setting up their workspace, working with Git and GitHub, making their contribution, and navigating the pull request and review process.
- Mentees: New to Python or open source? Come learn, code, and ship your first PR! Just sign up for the session in the schedule and bring your laptop and enthusiasm, and we’ll help with the rest!
- Mentors: Have open source experience and know Git and GitHub? Show up to help newcomers, answer questions, and foster the next generation of contributors! No project-specific knowledge needed, but you’re welcome to mentor on your own project if you like! Sign up now at https://forms.gle/n7FzuQz1qASngk9VA
Make a meaningful impact (fix a bug, review code, or guide a newcomer to their first merge) and walk away with an exclusive super cool swag bag!
Mentors:
- Fangchen Li
- Rachel Wagner-Kaiser, Ph.D.
- Jake Stevens-Haas, Ph.D.
- Eloisa Elias
- Joseph Holsten
- Harshit Rai
- TBA and more!
Recent Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics, with original research on ML for physics. Along the way, began maintaining pysindy, a library for Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics and occasionally contributing to NumFOCUS projects. What I love about open source is the opportunity for people of all backgrounds, countries, and ages to learn production-quality software development skills. I've felt welcomed and grateful for all my interactions with the community. Formerly, I was an officer in the U.S. Navy, sailing ships around the world, so research and engineering was a huge career transition.
I live in Seattle, where I play hockey and read a bunch.
I'm looking for work at the nexus of ML research and engineering.
Python and Spyder core developer, specializing in docs, infra, and UI. Python Docs Team and PEP Editor. Star✦Fleet Commander. Former NASA-funded lighting UAH researcher.
Eloisa stands as a trailblazer in Seattle’s tech scene, recognized as the Pacific Northwest’s premier open-source event host. As a data scientist and the visionary founder of PyData Seattle under NumFOCUS, she has cultivated a vibrant community for data enthusiasts. She also chairs PyLadies Seattle, empowering women in Python programming.
Her leadership extends to founding the Women in Data Science (WiDS) and Women’s conferences in Seattle, fostering inclusive spaces for learning and collaboration. As a Women Techmakers Ambassador and Databricks MVP, Eloisa amplifies her impact, inspiring countless individuals through mentorship and advocacy.
Serving on the Technical Board at NumFOCUS, Eloisa shapes the strategic direction of open-source scientific computing. Her tireless collaboration with nonprofit tech organizations, city and state governments, and enterprises drives impactful diversity and inclusion programs, uplifting women and underrepresented minorities in tech.
pandas core developer
Rachel Wagner-Kaiser, Ph.D., is a director and data scientist at KPMG. She has 15 years of experience in data and AI, and specializes in building AI and natural language processing solutions for real-world problems constrained by limited or messy data. Rachel works across industries to lead KPMG’s technical teams to design, build, deploy, and maintain NLP solutions. Her expertise has helped companies organize and decode their unstructured data to solve a variety of business problems and drive value through automation. She is also author of the upcoming book “Teaching Computers to Read”.
Automator & Operator; Head of Engineering at Guardrail Technologies; contributor to some codebase you’ve used today.