Malvika Sharan


Combining open source/science with community collaboration,
and championing inclusivity and accessibility in research, data science and AI.
Born and raised in India (Namaskar!), based in London (Hello!).


About me


Senior Researcher - Open Research. The Turing Way at The Alan Turing Institute
Co-Director. OLS (previously Open Life Science)

I am a Senior Researcher at The Alan Turing Institute in London with specialisations in open research and community building. With a PhD in Bioinformatics, I kicked off my professional journey at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and discovered my passion at the crossroads of research and community impact. I am the co-lead of The Turing Way and the lead of a team of research community managers, both working towards making data science a diverse, global and collaborative effort.

I also co-founded OLS (previously Open Life Science), a non-profit organisation on a mission to build the next generation of diverse leaders through open science. I am a Software Sustainability Institute fellow and have proudly made it to the 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ - 2024 list. My previous contributions to open science initiatives include advisory roles for NASA TOPS, Society of RSE, Open Bioinformatics Foundation, and MetaDocencia.

When I'm not diving into research, I'm your go-to person for chats about community management, open research, digital skill building and smashing stereotypes in data science. With a PhD in computational biology, a ton of community love, and a knack for making tech cool, I'm your friendly neighbourhood enthusiast on a journey to foster a kind and solidarity-based culture in research. Let's chat about changing the world, one byte at a time!


Current Projects

Senior Researcher - Open Research, The Alan Turing Institute

Lead of the Open Research Community Building Team
2021 - Present

Members of Open Research Community Building team are community managers from across different research projects at The Alan Turing Institute. Working as a team and with their engagement in The Turing Way, they help ensure that research and data-informed AI solutions at the Turing use and build on open and reproducible research practices. See the webpage for the Open Research Community Building team.

Co-Lead Investigator of The Turing Way

Project founded by Kirstie Whitaker
2021 - Present

The Turing Way is an open source project on best practices, guidance and recommendations on data science. I involve and support its diverse community of researchers, educators, policymakers and other stakeholders who develop and promote resources on reproducible, ethical, collaborative and inclusive data science.
Watch this short video on YouTube (6 minutes) to learn more.

Co-Founder/Co-Director of OLS (previously Open Life Science)

Co-founded with Bérénice Batut and Yo Yehudi
2019 - Present

OLS is a non-profit organisation that provides an international platform for open science leaders and learners to exchange their knowledge. Through 16-week long personal mentorship and cohort-based training, our participants gain knowledge essential to create, lead, and sustain their projects openly.
Listen to The ORION Open Science Podcast about OLS to learn more.

  

Community Involvements

Fellow

Software Sustainability Institute
2019 - Present

Community Panelist

NASA - Transform to Open Science (TOPS)
2022 - 2023

Trustee

Society of Research Software Engineering
2022

Selection Committee

CS&S Event Fund
2020 - Present

Advisory Team

MetaDocencia
2021 - Present

Committee Chair

The Carpentries Code of Conduct Committee
2018 - Present

Board Member

Open Bioinformatics Foundation
2019 - 2022

Selected Talks

Data Science & Community

Guest Lecture and Demo: The Turing Way Guide to Ethical Research, 31 July 2020, MIT Experiential Ethics Virtual Field Trip, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3968454

Guest Lecture: Collaboratively Learning and Sharing Data Science and Research Skills, 31 July 2020, The East African Network for Bioinformatics training (EANBiT) - H3BioNet residential training, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3968440

The Turing Way: Building a Culture of Collaboration in Data Science, 8 June 2020, CogX 2020, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3885850

The Turing Way: A Guide to Reproducible, Ethical and Collaborative Data Science and Research, 11 March 2020, Data Science Perspectives conference, Newcastle, UK, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3706577

Open Science

Open Life Science: Empowering Early Career Researchers to become Open Science Leaders, 20 July 2020, BCC 2020: Bioinformatics Community Conference, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4459418

DORA Panel: Challenges in Assessing Contributions to Reproducible Research and Open Science, 2 September 2020, ESOF 2020: Euro Science Opem Forum, Trieste, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4013300

COVID-19 Perspective Talk: Open Communities and Promoting a Culture of Collaboration, 1 April 2020 - Collaboration Workshop 2020; 12 May 2020 - Women in Data Science | IBM Code Bristol, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.3745008

Keynote: Inclusiveness in Open Science Communities, 21 September 2018, OpenCon 2018, Switzerland, DOI:10.5281/zenodo.4051476


Blogs

I write blog posts on Open Science practices, community building, inclusiveness in research and related topics. Since they are dispersed across different community platforms, I try to compile and post them on my blog page whenever I can.



Get in touch

If you’d like to get in touch about projects for potential collaboration, speaking requests, mentorship or just to say 'Namaskar/Hallo/Hi!' - feel free to get in touch through any of the social channels linked below.