ESIP UPDATE: The Student Fellow Special

Good morning all – Thanks to everyone who came to the Winter Meeting!  We'll have more content from that up on YouTube and on the wikis, etc. by next week.

Next week: New Leadership Special!

Remember, if there is anything you'd like to see included in next week's Monday Update, send it to Bruce Caron (brucecaron AT esipfed.org). 

Best, 
Bruce 
brucecaron AT esipfed.org

Federation News 

• Student Fellows
• Ignite@AGU Videos

Around the Federation

• Most telecons are recaps from the Winter Meeting and planning for 2017: hop on and contribute.

See the full telecon calendar here. Select the meeting you'd like to attend, login instructions are included in description. 

Federation News

Please welcome our Student Fellows:

I am Mingshu Wang, a PhD student at the Center for Geospatial Research, Department of Geography, the University of Georgia. My research is on applying geospatial big data analytics for urban informatics. I really enjoyed the Calm Technology speech at the Winter Meeting. I will be working with the Science Communication Cluster, where I want to promote effective and efficient science communication and outreach practices.

Hi all! My name is Jamie Collins and I am a very recent recipient of a Ph.D. in marine chemistry from the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography. In April, I will be moving to Seattle to begin a Moore/Sloan Data Science and Washington Research Foundation Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Washington. At UW, I'll be working with collaborators in several different departments to develop new “big data” analysis methods for making sense of the hundreds of thousands of different small molecules that can be found in each drop of seawater.

I was particularly engaged at the ESIP Winter Meeting by discussions on the “sustainability” of open-source scientific software, which represents a major challenge for the earth science information community. Keeping open-source software packages working and maintaining their relevance for users can be difficult since there often isn't dedicated funding to do so. To make matters more complicated, the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who develop a large fraction of the scientific software move frequently from one place (and one project) to another.

I will be the student fellow for the Data Preservation and Stewardship Cluster, where I look forward to learning about – and helping develop – policies and best practices for archiving, maintaining, and making available (to researchers and the public) data from all areas of the earth sciences.

My name is Johanna Bozuwa and I am a Master’s Student studying Sustainable Business & Innovation at Universiteit Utrecht in the Netherlands. For my research, I’m diving into how community renewable power can generate equity in low income communities and communities of color.

There were so many workshops and plenary talks that I enjoyed at the Winter Meeting. I was particularly struck by the researcher/activist who delved into the concept of The Commons within and beyond open source data— it gave me food for thought for my thesis. This is my second year as an ESIP Fellow and I will be continuing to work with the Education Committee, hoping to bridge the gap between scientists and educators. In addition, I will be collaborating with the newest ESIP Cluster: the Climate Literacy and Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN for short). Can’t wait for another exciting year with ESIP!

I’m Yongyao Jiang, Ph.D. student at George Mason University in the Spatiotemporal Innovation Center. My research primarily focuses on building an intelligent geospatial data discovery engine to strengthen the ties between Earth observations and user communities. More broadly, I’m interested in applying machine learning and natural language processing techniques to solving knowledge discovery problems in Earth Science by taking into account the domain-specific concerns. I really enjoyed the Earth Science Data Analytics session at the winter meeting, where I learned a lot from the conversation between Earth scientists and data professionals. As the ESIP student fellow in the Discovery cluster, I’m most look forward to expanding my knowledge of data search and bridging the gap between data and scientists.

My name is Ryan Crumley, I’m a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Water Resources Science at Oregon State University. My research is on hydrologic partitioning of streamflow in glacierized and snow dominated watersheds in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the Andes, and the potential changes to these systems in a warming world. I use snow evolution modeling, remotely sensed snow and ice datasets, and in-situ hydrochemical observations to study these regions. At the ESIP Winter Meeting, attending the poster session and having personal conversations with climate scientists and cloud computing experts about their current projects was incredibly valuable to me. I also really enjoyed the Experiences in Science Communication workshop. I will be assisting the cloud computing cluster in the coming months.  I'm looking forward to the ESIP student fellow experience!

I'm Matt Bartos, a Ph.D. student studying Civil Engineering at the University of Michigan. My research focuses on using wireless sensor networks to enable “smart” water infrastructure. Some ongoing applications include real-time flood monitoring in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, and optimized control of stormwater retention basins in the City of Ann Arbor.

The ESIP Winter meeting was a very positive experience for me, and I was impressed by the wide range of subjects that were covered during the talks. I found Amber Case's talk on calm technologies to be particularly interesting, and I hope to use some of her principles when designing user interfaces for my own research.

I will be serving as the student fellow for the Envirosensing cluster. During my time as student fellow, I hope to learn more about best practices for sensor data management, archiving and quality control. I also look forward to sharing some of my practical experience in designing, programming, and deploying wireless sensor nodes.

Hi! My name is Andrea Thomer – I'm a PhD candidate in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I conduct research in the areas of natural history & museum informatics, information organization, information system usability, and digital curation. In my dissertation I develop a framework for the long-term curation and maintenance of data collections from scientifically significant sites.

I really enjoyed the geosemantics symposium that preceded the ESIP Winter Meeting – it was great to see the range of projects successfully using semantic technologies to make earth science data more accessible and robust. I'm looking forward to learning more about these projects (and hopefully building collaborations for some of my own) in my work as the student fellow for the Semantic Web Technologies Committee.  I'm particularly interested in studying and improving the usability of semantic technologies –both the ontologies themselves and the systems used to apply and build them.

Ignite@AGU 2016 Videos are up on YouTube
It was a great night of lightning talks. If you missed it or want to relive it here are the videos: Ignite@AGU 2016

Around the Federation

NASA Student Internship Available
This internship is in the area of drones, and includes interaction with the ESIP drone cluster. The location is Goddard Space Flight Center.
Check out the ANNOUNCEMENT

CUAHSI Training Workshops:
TRAINING WORKSHOP: THE COMMUNITY WRF-HYDRO MODELING SYSTEM
May 2 – 4, 2017 || Boulder, CO
Early Bird Registration Deadline: February 1^st
Regular Registration Deadline: February 15^{th
INFO at Event Website}

MASTER CLASS: WATER SUSTAINABILITY IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY
May 16 – 19, 2017 || Flagstaff, AZ
Early Bird Registration Deadline: February 15^th
Regular Registration Deadline: February 28^{th
INFO at Event Website}