In this blog post, we are highlighting the career journey of Ana Ruvalcaba. Ana is a founding member of the Jupyter Executive Council and is the Director of the project’s program at California Polytechnic State University (San Luis Obispo, CA, USA).
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with a minor in Ethnic Studies. Ana’s areas of expertise include program/project management, people management, operations, budgeting, and global events.
We learned more about her impact and journey from the following interview.
When did you start your open source journey?
From 2016 to 2021 I partnered with Professor Brian Granger (Cal Poly/AWS) to manage over 2 million dollars in Jupyter grant funding at Cal Poly which included supervising full-time design/engineering staff and the Jupyter Internship program. The internship program provided a unique learning environment for nearly 50 students from 6 cohorts who worked in interdisciplinary teams to build Jupyter extensions.
Starting in 2019, I participated in a multi-year effort to create a new governance model for Project Jupyter and am the first and only non-code contributor to Project Jupyter to be elected to its leadership bodies, the Jupyter Steering Council (2018 - 2022) and Jupyter Executive Council (2022 - present). Over the years, I have collaborated with a wide variety of stakeholders in open source, tech, and university environments to deliver a unique set of contributions.
Tell us about your work and contributions to open source
I am a champion of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. In 2017, I co-authored the first Code of Conduct policy for Project Jupyter. In 2022, I co-founded the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, and I also serve as a member of the NumFOCUS Diversity in Scientific Computing Committee.
I facilitated many global events that have reached thousands of Jupyter developers, designers, and users. These include three team meetings for developers, over 20 local/regional community workshops, and JupyterCon (global user conference). I am a co-founder of Jupyter’s Community Working Group which leads on strategic initiatives designed to connect a global community of Jupyter enthusiasts. As part of that committee, I oversaw the creation of a community organizing committee responsible for establishing the structure, strategy, and impetus to kick off planning for JupyterCon 2023.
Your open source contributions don’t involve any coding. Could you classify and explain their importance and impact on Project Jupyter to our readers?
CODE OF CONDUCT Spearheading the creation of a more inclusive community, I partnered with Fernando Perez and Reese Netro to write the inaugural Code of Conduct policy for Jupyter in 2017. In 2023, I collaborated with folks from a CZI grant-funded project called the Contributor Experience Handbook. I also explored the possibility of a revitalization of current COC processes. This work remains in progress and I am committed to creating a more effective COC framework for the Jupyter community.
COMMUNITY BUILDING In 2023, I co-founded three community working groups and standing committees. This involved writing charters for the groups and recruiting additional participants to join the efforts to grow the Jupyter community. Collaborations with key contributors allowed me to establish the Community Building working group (JCB) with Jason Grout from DataBricks, Diversity Equity and Inclusion (JDEI) with Jason Weill from AWS, and Media Strategy (JMS) with Steven Sylvester. Additionally, I provided instrumental support to the Documentation working group (JD) during its foundational phase.
LEADERSHIP + GOVERNANCE I am the first and only non-engineer to be elected to the Jupyter Steering Council in 2018 and then to the Jupyter Executive Council in 2022. My work is focused on non-code contributions that impact our global community.
I serve as a key point of contact for NumFOCUS and oversee the financial management of all centrally managed Jupyter funds. In addition, I contribute to the Diversity in Scientific Computing Committee (DISC). In 2023, I partnered with Melissa Mendonça and Tania Allard to organize the DISC Unconference. I also led efforts in the Methodologies for Collecting Community Data group during the event. Read more about our work here: (https://numfocus.medium.com/disc-unconference-2023-designing-inclusivity-in-open-source-14019cbdb3cb)
What advice would you give to new open source contributors?
Not all contributions to open source are on GitHub! The future of Project Jupyter and our ability to be sustainable for many decades to come is just as dependent on strategic activities that have the power to attract and retain contributors as it is on decisions in the Jupyter code base.
Inclusion and diversity matters! In order for diversity initiatives to succeed, inclusion must be cultivated and practiced. The people who build and design OS tools should be as diverse as the people who use them.