I believe the role of a scientist should be to communicate with the public, contribute to public education, and to advance their academic discipline. I try to do all of these things for outreach. I write about science, for both the general public and professionals, at my blog: Cyme & Cystidium.

I'm a certified instructor for both Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry. Our goal is to teach researchers basic software programming (computer literacy) and data analysis skills to make their work easier, more reproducible, and more robust.

I've taught numerous workshops during academic meetings for the purpose of educating teachers on how to become more computer literate. The goal is introduce and implement more computer literacy in their own classrooms.

These workshop focus on learning computer skills that can streamline and automate research and teach the teachers towards integration of these computer skills with their classroom teaching exercises.

I edit and review publications for a variety of publications. In the last year I served as a reviewer for the following journals: New Phytologist, Molecular Ecology, Fungal Ecology, PLoS ONE, Clinical Microbiology, PeerJ, and The ISME Journal.

I serve as an moderator and supporter of the bioinformatics help site Biostar.

I have served on numerous committees at the university level for the promotion of undergraduate research and undergraduate research funding opportunities. I believe funding undergraduate research opportunities are important for fostering young scientific minds. My undergraduate research experiences were very vital for my development so I work hard to make similar experiences possible for those interested.