The Assembly of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP Federation) elected four new member organizations, two of which have an affiliation with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science (SILS), bringing total membership to more than 140 organizations.
Initiated by NASA in 1997, the ESIP Federation is a broad-based, distributed community of science data and information technology practitioners spanning government (NASA, NOAA, EPA, USGS, NSF), academia and the private sectors (both commercial and nonprofit). The Foundation for Earth Science provides administrative and staff support to the ESIP Federation. It is dedicated to transforming research data and information into useful and usable data and information products for decision makers, policy makers and the public. Partnership in the ESIP Federation is open to organizations that work at the intersection of Earth science data and associated technologies.
The new member organizations include:
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Data Intensive Cyber Environments Center/DataNet Federation Consortium (DICE)
- University of South Florida College of Marine Science (USFCMS)
- NASA Applied Sciences Program - Health and Air Quality Applications, NASA Headquarters
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI)/iRODS Development and Support (RENCI)
“The ESIP Federation is the community space for Earth science data practitioners looking to expose their technical work and to learn about the work of their peers," said Karl Benedict, ESIP Federation President. "ESIP Federation partners work collectively to improve interoperability among data systems, regardless of who created them.” Benedict adds, “The ESIP Federation does this through an open, collegial environment that focuses on the broader community good.”
ESIP Federation membership is strictly voluntary and the continued growth of its membership reflects the recognition that the ESIP Federation is a dynamic and collaborative forum where data providers, researchers and users gather to exchange valuable information.
According to Benedict, “The steady growth of ESIP Federation membership and the growing diversity of partners showcases the value that the ESIP Federation community provides to its members. The community-led technical exchanges, professional development workshops and peer-to-peer interactions facilitated by the ESIP Federation allow for community solutions to distributed data systems interoperability to emerge.”
Members of the DICE Center includes Reagan Moore, SILS professor, chief scientist of the DICE Center, RENCI; Arcot Rajasekar, SILS professor and chief scientist, RENCI; Mike Conway, member of the DICE Center; and Antoine de Torcy, SILS research associate and a member of the DICE Center.
The group at RENCI includes Charles Schmitt, director of informatics; Leesa Brieger, senior research software developer; Terrell Russell (Ph.D. 2011) data management research scientist; Jason Coposky, senior research software architect and team leader for Enterprise iRODS; Michael Shoffner, senior research software architect and adjunct instructor at SILS.
The DataNet Federation Consortium (which has participation by the DICE Center, SILS and RENCI) members from SILS include, Reagan Moore, PI of the DataNet Project and SILS professor; Helen Tibbo, alumni distinguished professor; Christopher (Cal) Lee, associate professor; Jewel Ward, doctoral student; Arcot Rajasekar, co-PI of the DataNet Project and SILS professor.
