Register for the Open Source Symposium on October 24
Open Source Symposium, a free, one-day event at UC Davis focused on advancing open source software development for research, is happening on October 24, 2025 in Shields Library, Room 167.
Whether you are new to open source, looking to expand your contributions, or want to attract contributors, this event is an opportunity for all members of the university community — including graduate students, postdocs, faculty, researchers, and undergraduates. Come connect, build practical skills, and learn actionable ways to engage.
Held during Open Access Week, this event is sponsored by the UC Davis Open Source Program Office (OSPO), with support from the UC Davis Library and DataLab, to broaden participation in open source.
Register Now
Register now to reserve your spot to leverage and contribute to open source software, and to attract contributors to your OS research projects!
Agenda
Registration is required to attend the networking lunch to grow your collaborations and community.
Please indicate on your registration which sessions you plan to attend.
Posted times are subject to change.
9 AM – Welcome and Faculty Panel on Establishing and Growing Open Source Ecosystems
Dr. Titus Brown
Dr. Lorraine Hwang
Dr. Justin Siegel
Dr. Duncan Temple-Lang
Dr. Vladimir Filkov
11 AM – Discovering OS Projects
Learn about the many flavors and stages of open source development, and how to get involved in this presentation by the UC OSPO’s community Manager, Laura Langdon.
12 – 1 PM – Networking Lunch
Please note that registration is required to attend the networking lunch.
1 – 5 PM – Introduction to Git and GitHub for Collaborative Coding and Software Development
This hands-on workshop by UC Davis DataLab provides an introduction to using the popular open source version control software Git with the GitHub cloud service for effective and efficient software development. This workshop is designed for learners with some prior coding exposure. Bring your laptop and signup for your free education GitHub account at github.com. By this end of this workshop you’ll have made your first GitHub repository and be ready to start contributing to open source projects!
Note: Learners who want to code along will need administrator privileges to be able to download software to their laptop.
Register at events.library.ucdavis.edu/event/open-source-symposium-2025
About the Panelists
Dr. Titus Brown is a Professor of Population Health and Reproduction in Veterinary Medicine and leads the Data Intensive Biology Lab, tackling questions surrounding biological data analysis, data integration and data sharing. His research focuses on genomics, transcriptomics and metagenomics sequence analysis and software development. He is a champion of open source and open science. The DIB Lab developed and maintains the Sourmash software, which enables faster and more efficient analysis of high-throughput DNA sequencing data and is an exemplar of investment into training and documentation to facilitate the growth of an OS community.
Dr. Lorraine Hwang holds a Ph.D. in Seismology and is Co-Director of Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG). CIG is an international, community-driven organization advancing Earth Science by providing the cyberinfrastructure to create, support and disseminate software for research in geophysics and related fields. Through their flagship software communities investigating deep Earth and crustal dynamics, CIG implements and provides guidance on open source software best practices and trains the next generation of Earth scientists. CIG boasts over 40 OS software projects cited in thousands of publications.
Dr. Justin Siegel is a Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Molecular Medicine at the Genome Center, and Faculty Director of the Innovation Institute for Food and Health. His research focuses on the design and discovery of enzymes relevant to society, with an emphasis on food, energy and health. Dr. Siegel is co-inventor on >100 global patents and has >50 publications, as well as being a founding member of six companies (Bio Architecture Labs, PvP Biologics, Digestiva, Peak B, New Syn, SFS Advisors), three international consortiums (Rosetta Commons Board, FoodShot Global, Innovation Institute for Food & Health), and two national consortiums (D2D Cure, AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems).
Dr. Duncan Temple-Lang is the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Professor of Statistics. Prior to joining UC Davis, he was technical staff of AT&T Bell Laboratories. His international reputation as a member of the core development team of the R system, a computing language and environment widely used worldwide by statisticians, is indisputable. He has authored or significantly contributed to more than 120 R packages released as part of the Omegahat project. He is the co-author of 2 books and is one of 4 co-editors of “The R series”, a book series.
Dr. Vladimir Filkov is a Professor of Computer Science and coPI on the UC Open Source Program Office Network grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where he brings his extensive research background in open source sustainability. He leads the DECAL Lab, which focuses on the development of open source communities and ecosystems and launched OSSPREY, a tool for assessing the health of a project based on socio-technological factors. He advises the undergraduate CodeLab, which is developing tools to help with scaling open source software.