Associate Professor of Archaeology
University of Washington
My main research activities combine models from evolutionary ecology with analyses of archaeological evidence to investigate past human behaviour. Specific interests include the hominin disperal into mainland Southeast Asia, forager technologies and ecology in Australia, mainland Southeast Asia and elsewhere. A common theme in all my work is a commitment to the techniques and methods for reproducible research. I use the R programming language, Markdown, and related tools and services to improve the computational reproducibility of my research. I also use these tools in my teaching.
Marwick, B., Boettiger, C., & Mullen, L. (2018). Packaging data analytical work reproducibly using R (and friends). The American Statistician, 72(1), 80-88.
#- We update the concept of the 'research compendium' using R and related tools and services.
Marwick, B., & Birch, S. E. P. (2018). A Standard for the Scholarly Citation of Archaeological Data as an Incentive to Data Sharing. Advances in Archaeological Practice, 6(2), 125-143.
#- We study data availability in archaeology journal articles and data repositories. We explore definitions of data and ethics of data sharing
Marwick, B., d’Alpoim Guedes, J., Barton, C. M., Bates, L. A., Baxter, M., Bevan, A., ... & Conrad, C. (2017). Open science in archaeology. SAA Archaeological Record, 17(4), 8-14.
#- A large-group authored manifesto to motivate open science practices in archaeology, and outline what practices make sense for most archaeologists
Marwick, B. (2017). Computational reproducibility in archaeological research: basic principles and a case study of their implementation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 24(2), 424-450.
#- A detailed report on a case of study of how to make a typical archaeological report reproducible using R and related tools and services.
Eglen, S. J., Marwick, B., Halchenko, Y. O., Hanke, M., Sufi, S., Gleeson, P., ... & Wachtler, T. (2017). Toward standard practices for sharing computer code and programs in neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience, 20(6), 770.
#- A manifesto including concrete, hands-on steps that researchers can take to make their code available with their research.
AS A TIER FELLOW...
Ben will revise parts of the UW archaeology curriculum to fully incorporate Project TIER principles, using R, Markdown, and related tools. The goal will be to make reproducible and transparent research the normal way of working in these classes. He will conduct workshops during the academic year for graduate student instructors and faculty to introduce Project TIER concepts more broadly in anthropology. Beyond his home department he will be active in the UW eScience Institute's Reproducible Research Special Interest Group, leading workshops on core tools and principles. Beyond UW, Ben will organise a conference session and accompanying workshop at the April 2020 Society of American Archaeology meeting on the topic of 'Teaching Integrity in Empirical Archaeological Research'. The goal of the session will be to showcase archaeologists who are teaching classes using Project TIER or similar approaches to teaching students how to work reproducibly, and communicate these values and teaching practices more broadly.