Learn from experts on climate change, data visualization, science communication and more at the 2016 ESIP Summer Meeting. On the morning of Wednesday, July 20, our four plenary speakers will share their knowledge, followed by a round of ten lightning talks by ESIP community members.

 

Plenary Speakers

Jonathan Marino, MapStory
Jonathan Marino is a founding director of the MapStory Foundation, a non-profit organization that sustains the mapstory.org platform and user community. In this capacity, his passion is in helping academics, practitioners and students improve their ability to collaborate around the maintenance of spatio-temporal data across the disciplines, and to translate these data into compelling visual narratives that help the general public better understand the world around them. Prior to MapStory Jon coordinated the Innovation Lab Network inside the Council of Chief State School Officers, managed service-learning for the Chicago Public Schools, and co-directed the Center for Global Engagement at Northwestern University. A 2008 Fulbright Scholar to Uganda, Marino did his undergraduate study at Northwestern University in education and political science, and master's work in philosophy at the National University of Ireland-Galway.

 

 

Ellen Prager, Earth2Ocean, Inc.
Dr. Ellen Prager is a marine scientist and author, widely recognized for her expertise and ability to make science entertaining and understandable for people of all ages. She currently works as a freelance writer, consultant and science advisor to Celebrity Xpedition in the Galapagos Islands. She was previously the Chief Scientist for the Aquarius Reef Base program in Key Largo, FL, which includes the world’s only undersea research station, and at one time the Assistant Dean at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Prager has built a national reputation as a scientist and spokesperson on earth and ocean science issues and is a sought after speaker for public-oriented events. She has appeared on The Today Show and NBC News, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox News, CBS Early Show, Larry King, The Weather Channel and in shows for the Discovery Channel. Prager focuses much of her time on bringing Earth and ocean science to the public through writing, working with the media, creating innovative partnerships, and speaking events. Her latest publication, Stingray City, is the third book in an exciting new eco-adventure series (Tristan Hunt and the Sea Guardians) that combines fast-paced action, humor, and ocean science. Prager obtained a B.A. from Wesleyan University, a M.S. from the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1992.

 

Benjamin L. Preston, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Dr. Benjamin L. Preston is a senior research scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Environmental Sciences Division where he also acts as the Deputy Director of ORNL’s Climate Change Science Institute. Previously, he held positions with the Pew Center on Global Change (now C2ES) and Australia’s CSIRO. His research over the past 15 years has focused on enhancing understanding of climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability and working across the science/policy boundary. Ben has contributed to prominent climate change assessment including the most recent National Climate Assessment and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. In addition, he has been recognized multiple times for his efforts in science communication including engagement with the media, community organizations, policy makers, and students. Preston received a BS in biology from the College of William & Mary and a Ph.D. in environmental biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he minored in public policy.

 

Amanda Weigel, University of Alabama in Huntsville (Raskin Scholarship Recipient)
Amanda Weigel is a Science Research Associate with the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Information Technology and Systems Center working with the Global Hydrology Resource Center (GHRC) DAAC, which is a collaborative effort between NASA/MSFC and the UAH. She received a B.S. in Meteorology and Geography from Virginia Tech, and her M.S. in Earth System Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Weigel’s research focuses on geospatial modeling of natural hazards and land-atmosphere interactions in tornado genesis, which has been funded through the NASA DEVELOP National Program, the UAH Master’s Competitive Internship Program and the UAH Industry/University Cooperative Graduate Student Research Program. More recently, Amanda has supported NASA/MSFC’s effort on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy led Climate Data Initiative (CDI) project on the collaborative development of data models and a faceted classification scheme for the Human Health theme. In addition, she supports NASA/MSFC’s Data Science and Informatics Group (DSIG) ongoing research to design knowledge graphs to improve the search and discovery of data and resources within atmospheric science. Weigel plans to pursue a doctorate in atmospheric science to blend her experience working in atmospheric, data and geospatial science.

 

Lightning Talk Presenters

David Bassendine, Blue Dot Lab 
Painless data access at scale with Drupal 8 and ElasticSearch

Katie Baynes, NASA
TBD

Sky Bristol, USGS
The Biogeographic Information System: experimentation in a new way of organizing and publishing scientific findings

Tripp Corbett, Christine White and Sudhir Shrestha, Esri
A tale about the tail: Science seeing the light of day through StoryMaps

Aaron Friesz, USGS
The Use of Jupyter Notebooks to Bridge the Gap between Users and Web Services

Jason Geer, weather.com
From Big Data to Better Decisions: How Weather Information is Making People Safer and Businesses Smarter

Nancy Hoebelheinrich, Knowledge Motifs 
Where'd I see that data management training session again? Aha! It was on the ESIP DMT Clearinghouse!

Doug Newman, NASA
Search Relevancy 101

Shelley Olds, UNAVCO
Drones meet STEAM: (W)rapping data & science into flight

Shelley Stall, AGU
Researchers and scientists love data management. Huh?

 

Check out the full Summer Meeting schedule and stay connected with ESIP through our FacebookTwitterweekly updates and AGU data blog posts.