Hi everyone, I’ve been a part of this community for some time but have not yet introduced myself, so here goes.
My name is James Azam and I am currently a Research Software Engineer with the Epiverse-TRACE Initiative. I work on epichains within Epiverse-TRACE and contribute to existing packages, mostly in the forecasting/nowcasting ecosystem, like EpiNow2 and occasionally, scoringutils, and epinowcast.
My original training was in Actuarial Science but I started pivoting towards infectious disease modelling when I did two masters in mathematical sciences (mostly taught) and mathematics by research at SACEMA. My PhD research was in developing compartmental models for assessing the impact of interventions. An example of this is an assessment of the use of measles vaccines outside the cold chain for outbreak response, an assessment of the impact of emerging variants on outbreak response impact. I also consulted briefly for a health data science startup in Cape Town, South Africa, where I contributed to the development of a COVID-19 model.
I am new to the application of Bayesian methods in nowcasting and forecasting, but I am picking up on it as I go on my current job. Sam and Seb’s passion for the topic is infectious and you start to show symptoms after a short time of exposure (with a delay).
Although I enjoy coding, I equally enjoy the so-called soft skills like (science) communication and the art of explanation. So, I always seize the opportunity to contribute in that area. I have published some work in that regard. In my day-to-day software development, when I’m reviewing documentation, my main question usually is “would a beginner understand this?”. Hence, I tend to be a bit harder in my reviews of software documentation (READMEs, vignettes, etc.).
I am new to the technical pre-requisites needed to contribute to the models and methods here, but I can contribute to improving documentation, and refactoring or improving existing code. Documentation is often treated as a second-class citizen in research software development but I think it is essential to grow a community of users and new contributors.
I am competent in compartmental modelling, though, so if there’s ever a chance to have a conversation around that, I would be keen to contribute.
