The scientific Python community, like the rest of the world, faces a set of interlocking crises. Longstanding questions over how to sustainably develop, fund and maintain open-source scientific software, open data, reproducible research and collaborative training are being magnified by a variety of forces from the AI boom, to government disinvestment, to economic disruption. Combining a short panel with audience discussion and Q&A, this virtual BoF will reflect on these challenges and crowdsource ideas for how the SciPy community (including future conferences) can serve as a vehicle for bolstering scientific open ecosystems.
This is a virtual Birds of a Feather section. It will take place on the virtual platform for the conference, Airmeet. All attendees will have access to Airmeet. NOTE: This session will observe Chatham House rules.
Hybrid committee co-chairs Puneet Kollipara and David Nicholson will host and moderate this panel discussion.
The scientific Python community, like the rest of the world, faces a set of interlocking crises. In addition to longstanding questions of how to sustainably develop open-source scientific software, we now face attacks on science, data and research infrastructure that would have once been unthinkable. And as if maintainers were not already stretched thin, they must now agree on how to deal with a firehose of pull requests generated using AI.
New ways of working have sprung up in response to these crises. These point the way toward building resilience into data, software, science and culture. The goal of this virtual BoF is to discuss what all these efforts have in common, to strengthen existing connections and share information. Additionally we will discuss proposing a track on resilient data, software, science, and culture for the SciPy 2027 conference. This BoF will be a panel discussion that brings together the SciPy conference community with a broader set of leaders involved in these efforts across scientific disciplines and open source software ecosystems.
Panelists will first introduce themselves and their area of focus. This will be followed by a general discussion and Q&A.
We are pleased to welcome these panelists to discuss the following topics:
- Jonny Saunders, post-doctoral researcher, UCLA; SciOp, data preservation; NeuroMatch and decentralized infrastructure
- Brianna (Pagán) Corremonte, technical lead, Development Seed; "Beyond Open Data" and Incentivising open science through powerful free and open tooling
- Juan Nunez-Iglesias, co-creator of napari, core scikit-image team member; Image Cooperative
- Kris Armeni, research scientist; civic tech contributor
- Yanina Bellini Saibene, community manager, rOpenSci; creation and reinforcing open software communities in Latin America
This is a virtual Birds of a Feather section. It will take place on the virtual platform for the conference, Airmeet. All attendees will have access to Airmeet. NOTE: This session will observe Chatham House rules.
Hybrid committee co-chairs Puneet Kollipara and David Nicholson will host this panel discussion and moderate.
Puneet Kollipara is a climate/geospatial data scientist and outreach/communications specialist in Washington, DC. Leveraging open source, open data and open science, he helps clients find, analyze, provide, translate and integrate data for the benefit of people and the planet.
He works with Fulton Ring and the Public Environmental Data Partners on HIFLD Next. This community-shaped geospatial data hub preserves and improves data layers from HIFLD Open, a public-facing federal aggregator of infrastructure datasets shut down in 2025.
To support open ecosystems, Puneet mentors aspiring technologists and contributes to open-source projects via communities like the Upskilling Labs and Civic Tech DC. He also helps plan open-source gatherings like FedGeoDay and FOSS4G North America. He joined the SciPy Conference Hybrid Committee in 2026.
Previously a science, environmental and public-policy journalist and blogger, Puneet holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and economics from Washington University in St. Louis, MO.
