One of the parts of research I enjoy most is creating tools that make data analysis smoother, more transparent, and more reproducible. Much of my work involves processing and analysing EEG and behavioural data, which means I spend a lot of time writing scripts to handle large, messy datasets. Over time, these small scripts grow into more structured programs, and I’ve started publishing them on GitHub so they can be useful to others as well.
My focus is often on automating tasks that otherwise take hours of manual effort. For example, I’ve written functions to help clean EEG recordings, align experimental events with brain data, and run statistical tests across different participant groups. Many of these tools are in MATLAB, since that’s widely used in neuroscience, but I also work in Python when a project benefits from its flexibility and open-source ecosystem.
Making these tools public is important to me. Science is increasingly collaborative, and the more we can share our methods, the more reproducible our findings become. Even if a program isn’t “perfect” or polished, it can still save someone else time or spark an idea for how to approach a problem differently. I see GitHub as a space where code can evolve, shaped by both my own needs and the feedback or contributions of others.
In the long run, I’d like to keep developing small, modular programs that fit into larger workflows. That way, researchers can pick and choose what they need without being locked into a single system. Whether it’s analysing frequency responses in EEG, preparing data for statistical modelling, or simply keeping files organised, there’s always a new challenge that can be solved with the right bit of code.
For now, the projects on my GitHub reflect the same philosophy I bring to my research: make things clear, reproducible, and adaptable. If you’re interested, feel free to take a look, use what’s helpful, and suggest improvements. The tools are there not just to support my own work, but to help build a community of shared methods that can push science forward.
Check out my Github repositories at: https://github.com/DrJamesIves
Cortical Chaos 