Trailer: Episode 12 with Juanita Gomez

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00:00 um

00:01 how do I say this

00:02 hello everybody

00:04 welcome back to another episode of PyPodcats

00:07 The Hidden Figures of Podcast

00:11 The Hidden Figures of Podcast

00:15 we need to cut this

00:22 how did you get started into this community

00:25 so when I started my PhD

00:26 I joined the security lab

00:28 so at the beginning

00:29 I was actually doing like cryptography

00:31 things not related to open source at all

00:33 during the day I was working in security

00:35 and during the night I was working in open source

00:37 and I thought that wasn't cool

00:39 I want to be able to help maintainers

00:40 like bug bounties or

00:42 like the hacky things

00:43 but

00:43 helping maintainers

00:44 implement those best practices in their projects

00:46 I always like have this image of like

00:48 oh security is super cool like

00:49 you know just like what you said

00:51 bounty and stuff just look like

00:52 like Wild West

00:53 like instead of cowboy

00:54 you have all these like Sci-Fi heros

00:56 and I'm totally not

00:57 a very secure person

00:58 I jaywalk all the time you know

01:01 AI is it good or bad for security in open source

01:05 oh my God

01:06 I think AI for everything

01:08 it should be used very carefully

01:10 and I think understanding what AI is

01:12 is part of that it's like understanding that

01:14 it's not like a magician that's telling you answers

01:17 it's just statistics

01:18 I've also seen you singing on stage for SciPy

01:22 I actually started singing when I was very

01:24 very little when I was like

01:25 12 years old I went to The X Factor in Colombia

01:29 ooo wow

01:30 I passed a few rounds then they kicked me out

01:33 when I was a kid I wanted to be Shakira

01:35 is everybody in Colombia so talented

01:37 I mean like I think so

01:40 we're cool nerds I love it

01:42 yes

01:43 hi everyone my name is Juanita

01:45 I am a PhD student at UC Santa Cruz

01:48 working in open source research and I've

01:51 also done a lot of work in community for open source

01:55 Scientific Python

01:56 if you want to learn more about some of this work

01:58 that I've done and my journey in open source

02:00 come watch this episode

Sneak Peek of our chat with Juanita Gomez, hosted by Cheuk Ting Ho and Mariatta Wijaya.

Juanita is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz, where her research focuses on improving the security of scientific open source software. She is a former developer of the Spyder IDE, one of the community managers for the Scientific Python project, and part of the organizing committee for the SciPy conference.

In this episode, Juanita shares how she went from making music videos on YouTube to creating friendlier documentation for Spyder, her research on open source security, practical security tips for maintainers, and her journey navigating imposter syndrome as a woman and Latina in tech. Plus: The X Factor, Shakira, and singing on stage at SciPy.

Full episode is coming on July 17th, 2026! Subscribe to our podcast now!

Get to know Juanita Gomez

Juanita Gomez

Juanita Gomez is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz, where her research focuses on improving the security of scientific open source software in collaboration with the Open Source Program Office (OSPO) at UCSC. She is a passionate programmer, mathematician, and open-source advocate, former developer of Spyder IDE at Quansight, and current community leader for the Scientific Python project, a community effort to better coordinate and support scientific Python libraries. She is also part of the organizing committee for the SciPy conference.

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Trailer: Episode 12 with Juanita Gomez

Get to know Juanita Gomez

Juanita Gomez

Stay in touch and support the Python Community

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