Profile of Notes from Nature Citizen Scientist: “jaymoore”

Name: Jonathan Moore (user jaymoore)

Country of residence: UK

What sort of science background or interest do you have? I work in scientific research using Bioinformatics looking at plant, microbe and human gene expression. I’m particularly interested in the herbarium records, as I’ve used the Kew Gardens herbarium in the past and found it a fascinating place.

What do you find most exciting about Notes from Nature? I love reading the careful notes and imagining the collector in the middle of nowhere, in the sun or rain, finding their plant and taking their samples and data.

What’s the most exciting aspect of citizen science work from your point-of-view? I think it’s great that the work of people over the years is being brought into the digital age, so the data can be analysed using modern methods, and I think it’s exciting that people are getting exposed to these different kinds of data sets. It’s exciting to be part of new discovery!

What other citizen science projects (including beyond Zooniverse) have you participated in? I did quite a lot of the exoplanet scoring in Zooniverse, and enjoyed that as a rather addictive game. I was one of the participants among those who spotted 4 exoplanets, and enjoyed that experience. I completed a few of the ship’s weather log records and I’ve also participated in a Kaggle data mining competition so far and came 177th. I’m working on getting a citizen science project off the ground into exploring gene expression.