2026-06-08 –, AUDITORIUM
The movement toward open science is driven by the idea of radical transparency. Frameworks such as the OSF enable researchers to share data, materials, and ideas openly, fostering collaboration, efficiency, and reproducibility. At the same time, the rapid rise of AI presents both opportunities and challenges for this vision. Open datasets can accelerate discovery, support new forms of analysis, and power AI-driven tools for scientific progress. However, these same resources may be used to train models without researchers’ knowledge or consent, while preprint repositories may increasingly host rapidly generated and unevenly vetted work.
These developments prompt an important conversation about the future of open science. How can we preserve openness while addressing emerging risks? What norms, infrastructures, or safeguards can ensure transparency supports responsible research? Should we rethink openness or adapt it to a changing technological landscape? This raises a key question: what is the future of open science in an AI-enabled world?
Crystal Steltenpohl is the Training and Education Manager at the Center for Open Science, spearheading initiatives to build awareness and skills in open scholarship through training and education.
As a community psychologist, Steltenpohl is passionate about improving individual and community well-being. Her goal as a mixed methods researcher is to use the best methods to ask the right questions and find feasible action steps.
Within open science, Steltenpohl has been particularly interested in encouraging open science advocates to have deeper conversations about what transparency and rigor mean, who we are being transparent with, and what assumptions are embedded within our conceptions of rigor. To this end, she is a founding member of Quala Lab, a collaboratively-run working group that works to find connections between the open science movement and qualitative and mixed methods research.
Steltenpohl has also worked in international contexts to improve scientific processes and disseminate research to diverse audiences through organizations like the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, the Psychological Science Accelerator, and the Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training. She obtained her bachelor’s in English and Psychology at the University of Southern Indiana in 2011, her master’s in applied psychology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2013, and her PhD in community psychology from DePaul University in 2017.
