AI Reading Club: How It Started (Again)
🤖📚 AI Reading Club: How It Started (Again)
Hi! I’m Viola (LinkedIn), an intern at the Data Science Center in the Data Science Internal Support (DaSIS) group. During my internship, I worked on a project exploring chat data from Mattermost. While browsing through the channels, I came across the AI Reading Club.
The channel had more than 70 members, but it felt inactive: people occasionally shared articles or papers, but no real discussions followed. Still, the steady flow of new members suggested growing interest in the topic.
Having previously taken part in a journal club for a university course, I knew that this type of format could really spark engagement. So… I decided to give it a fresh start!
☕ One afternoon over coffee after lunch at the EMBL ATC cafeteria, I shared the idea with Franziska Nicolaus (LinkedIn) (another intern at DaSIS) and Jacobo Miranda, Bioinformatics Training Officer at DaSIS. And on June 26th, the AI Reading Club was officially revived! 🎉
📅 What We’ve Done So Far
For the rest of my internship, Franziska and I organized weekly sessions. Here’s a recap of the meetings so far:
| Date | Title | Presenter(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 4th July | AlphaGenome | Viola Renne & Franziska Nicolaus |
| 24th July | Scooby: Modeling multi-modal genomic profiles from DNA sequence at single-cell resolution | Simone Procaccia |
| 1st August | Fine-tuning parameter selection (datasets is all you need!) | Jacobo Miranda |
| 8th August | Understanding LLMs Decoding Strategies | Viola Renne |
| 15th August | How Did We Get to Transformers? | Viola Renne |
| 22nd August | A Quick Walkthrough of Transformer Neural Networks | Franziska Nicolaus |
| 29th August | 🚀 Upcoming | Jurij Pecar |
✨ What I Learned
I noticed that switching to a more teaching-oriented approach, rather than a traditional reading club, boosted participation. For those new to AI, diving straight into research papers can feel intimidating, so approachable explanations lowered the barrier and created a more inclusive space.
At the same time, there’s still strong interest in reading scientific papers, especially exploring how these technologies are (or could be) applied here at EMBL. The survey results reflect this curiosity:
Beyond learning, the club also became a way for us to connect with others who share an interest in AI 🤝.
It is an informal, peer-led space that makes complex concepts more approachable, encouraging curiosity and collaborative learning.
🙌 Want to Join or Present?
Franziska and I are always open to suggestions! If you’d like to:
- present a paper or topic,
- recommend an article,
- or just join the discussion…
➡️ Reach out! We’d love to hear from you!
👩💻 A Note on Diversity
One thing I couldn’t help noticing: even though the revival was led by two young women, most participants so far have been men. Hopefully, as the community grows, we’ll see a broader mix of voices joining in.
🚀 Looking Ahead
As my internship wraps up, I’m excited to see the club continue. From now on, Franziska and Jacobo will be carrying the torch 🔥.
I can’t wait to see where the AI Reading Club goes next! 💫
Thanks for reading,
Viola 🌸