Welcome to the new ESIP website!
Welcome 2024 ESIP Community Fellows!
ESIP Community Fellows are graduate students interested in bridging the gap between informatics and Earth science.
The 2024 Community Fellows will support ESIP's collaboration areas and meetings in January and July, helping connect the Earth science data community. Which they do while continuing their studies and growing their careers!
This year's class of Community Fellows span many Earth science, information science and data science fields, bringing together a strong team with interdisciplinary interests and enthusiasm.
Interested in being an ESIP Community Fellow? Here is how to apply.
Bridging Earth science and data through collaboration
Abel Aragon
Data Stewardship Committee
Abel is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Earth Systems Science at George Mason University and holds a B.S. in geology from the University of California － Los Angeles. His graduate research focuses on reconstructing a new composite carbon and uranium isotope record from the Williston Basin, North Dakota, and learning more about the role ocean anoxia plays on the carbon cycle in shallow sea environments. Abel has worked with NOAA as an intern, documenting the influx of data from uncrewed systems to prepare for migration of data to cloud storage services. He is interested in learning more about current issues in geoscience data preservation and archival through his time with ESIP.
Colette Brown
Wildfires Cluster
Colette is a PhD student in the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation is trying to answer the question, “How does vegetation regrow after fires in the Arctic?” using a mix of field data, remote sensing, and land surface modeling. Colette graduated from the ERG Master’s program; where she used Landsat 7 imagery and machine learning to analyze vegetation growth after the largest and most severe fire in Alaska. She is also the 2022 ESIP Raskin Scholar.
Lauren Holian
Open Science Cluster
Lauren is a PhD student in Biological Sciences from the University of South Carolina. Her research spans disease and population ecology, and focuses specifically on the role of spatial and environmental processes in shaping their dynamics. She holds a BS in Integrative Biology and an MSc in Zoology from the University of Florida. Lauren believes open science is crucial in research and as a member of the ESIP community, seeks to further open science practices.
Md Sariful (Sharif) Islam
Information Technology & Interoperability Committee
Sharif is a postdoctoral researcher within the Media Lab at MIT. His research interests encompass various aspects of environmental change and associated vulnerabilities, including coastal environmental changes, adaptation and displacement, environmental pollution and public health, drought impacts, and the disproportionate effects of natural hazards and disasters. His work involves applying remote sensing, geographic information (GIS), and statistical tools and techniques to satellite/geospatial data to better understand environmental changes and consequences. Sharif holds a PhD in Geospatial and Environmental Analysis and double master's degree in Geography and Applied Statistics.
Chenyue Jiao
Council of Data Facilities
Chenyue Jiao is a Ph.D. student in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests lie in scientific practices and policies related to research data. Her proposed dissertation is to investigate how to define and measure the value of research data in Earth science from a multi-stakeholder perspective. She is excited to be a 2024 ESIP Community Fellow because of the connections and collaborations with distinguished scholars and potential contributions to the field.
Debasish Mishra
Soil Ontologies & Informatics Cluster
Debasish is a doctoral student at the Vadose Zone Research Group at Texas A&M University with specialization in hydrology and soil sciences. His research centers on addressing the pressing issue of climate-induced disruptions in the global water cycle. Debasish's keen interest in studying the thermodynamic aspects of land-atmospheric interactions by utilizing satellite datasets provides a global advantage to understand the changing norms of terrestrial ecosystems.
Anthony Pignatelli
Envirosensing Cluster
Anthony is a PhD student at the University of South Carolina working with Dr. Tad Dallas in the Department of Biological Sciences where he is studying ecological theory using existing data and through experimental microcosms. Anthony obtained his Masters from the University of Central Arkansas and his Bachelors from Kent State University. His previous work involved studying nutrient concentrations in urban streams in Little Rock, Arkansas. During his Masters, Anthony was part of the Ecological Stoichiometry Cooperative, a NSF Funded group to create an open access database on aquatic stoichiometric and water quality data for the United States. Currently, he is interested in environmental effects on population synchrony using open source data such from repositories such as NEON and is also interested in studying metapopulation dynamics in the Tribolium system of beetles. He hopes to expand his PhD work to utilize some GIS techniques to continue to study environmental effects on population dynamics and continue to use existing time series data to study population and spatial synchrony.
Natalie Raia
Physical Sample Curation Cluster
Natalie Raia is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the School of Information at the University of Arizona. A geoscientist by training, her current research focuses on studying sample collection and reuse practices of scientists in order to inform improvements to the functionality and usability of next-gen digital sample and data repositories. She also conducts mapping to support increased interoperability of related data systems and participates in community engagement and guideline development to enable scientists to make their data more discoverable and FAIR. Natalie holds a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Minnesota, and a B.S. in geology and B.A. in Plan II Liberal Arts Honors from the University of Texas at Austin.
Connect with Natalie on LinkedIn
Nelofar Qulizada
Disaster Lifecycle Cluster
Nelofar is an MS student in the Master of Science in Geography at the University of Arkansas Geosciences Department, focusing on disaster lifecycles. Her current work focuses on using remotely sensed imagery (i.e., synthetic aperture radar (SAR), optical imagery, elevation models, and land-use/land-cover data) to map flood extents, model flood depths, and identify the intersection of the flooded domain and agricultural land in Southern Malawi to assess the impact. Nelofar additionally serves on the YouthMappers at UArk Chapter and is a part of the Environmental GIS & Cartography Lab (EGCL) at UA, where she leverages geographic information, technologies, and techniques to make meaningful scientific contributions. As part of the ESIP community, Nelofar hopes to facilitate connections and coordinate efforts among data providers, managers, and developers of multi-source systems and tools.
Jiyin Zhang
Semantic Technologies Committee
Jiyin Zhang serves as a Research Assistant in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Idaho. His primary research area involves the integration of knowledge graph methodologies into geoscience data analytics. This work aims to enhance the understanding and interpretation of complex geoscientific data through advanced computational techniques.
