Mark Laufersweiler has always had a strong interest in computers, computing, data and data visualization. Mark started at OU as the Computer Systems Coordinator for the School of Meteorology from 1999-2013. Part of his duties included managing the real time data feed and maintaining the departmental data archive. He assisted the faculty, students, and staff in their courses to help promote the computing and data skills needed for the classroom and instruction based on current best (better) practices regarding research data and code development, what he refers to as research hacking. Since the Fall of 2013, he has served as the Research Data Specialist for the OU Libraries.

Mark is assisting the educational mission of the OU Libraries by developing and offering workshops, seminars and short courses, helping to inform the university community on data management plans and on best (better) practices for research data management. He is the university’s representative to the Carpentries Foundation and is an active Carpentry instructor and trainer. He is also involved with the Library Carpentry. One of his current projects is working to have OU join as an institutional member with the Open Science Framework (OSF) tool, hosted by the Center for Open Science.