Davide Spalla
Radboud University Nijmegen
Fellowship project title: Neural Data Science: an open-source course on programming and analysis methods for systems neuroscience.
The goal: This project aims to develop and share an open-source course on the fundamental programming and analysis techniques in systems neuroscience. The goal is twofold: to help young researchers to learn the quantitative skills essential for modern neuroscience, and to develop and share high-quality analysis tools and pipelines for neuroscientists worldwide. By strongly focusing on programming tools and practices the course also aims to increase awareness about the importance of research software for systems neuroscience.
The why: The recent advances in neuroimaging techniques have spurred a growing demand of software to analyse ‘big data’: Neuroscientists record thousands of neurons simultaneously, resulting in datasets measuring terabytes. Researchers routinely need complex analysis pipelines to handle the expanding workflow, and tools to share and visualise the resulting data. Educational material, especially regarding software building practices, is struggling to keep up with these fast changes, leaving knowledge gaps that can hinder reproducibility and openness.
