Update from CUAHSI Staff who Attended the 2025 Virtual ESIP Meeting
Posted Feb 10, 2025
CUAHSI Environmental Data Scientists, Lindsay Platt and Abner Bogan, attended the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) virtual conference themed Innovation to Impact, that took place from January 21 - 24, 2025. While CUAHSI is a member organization of the ESIP community, this was both Lindsay’s and Abner’s first time attending an ESIP event. While there can often be hesitation about virtual conferences, they were impressed and pleased by the virtual conference technology, the wide variety of sessions to choose from, the engaging and interactive structure of each session, and the ample time for Q&A between speakers and attendees.
Some of the key takeaways from the event included:
Workshop on Reproducible Scientific Workflows:
They had the opportunity to lead a workshop titled Enhancing Reproducible Scientific Workflows with the R 'targets' Package, which went very smoothly. Attendees were given the choice to follow along passively or download a code zip file and try running the commands and data pipeline themselves. With the materials (slides, code, and an instructor guide) for a 90-minute workshop now available, they are looking forward to hosting this workshop again in the future. A recording of this workshop from the ESIP meeting, along with other sessions will be available for the public on the ESIP YouTube page.Data Repository Interoperability:
Lindsay attended a session that focused on data repository interoperability, which she found to be very familiar to a recent American Geophysical Union (AGU) town hall session on data repositories and metadata standards. One of the main takeaways from the session was the disconnect between how repositories and reference managers communicate metadata, often resulting in missing or erroneous information. The speakers mentioned they were planning to publish a paper soon on the topic, but they also provided a link to a previous presentation, which outlines suggested actions for data repositories: https://zenodo.org/records/14367875. CUAHSI is excited to participate in this discussion moving forward.Data Stewardship and Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Abner attended the session Indigenous Data FUNding Friday Project, which provided an important output in the form of a community-curated dataset of key contacts for CARE-related work. Another session he attended focused on data management in federal agencies, where there was much discussion about resistance to making data accessible due to metadata requirements. Abner found this to be an eye-opening experience, hearing firsthand about the challenges researchers face with the onerous task of preparing metadata and how easing this burden could potentially improve compliance with NSF-PAR data requirements.
Data Democracy and Empowering Users:Both Lindsay and Abner participated in a session discussing data democracy and how to empower more users to take advantage of the vast datasets available through agencies and organizations at no cost. The breakout room discussions were particularly insightful, where one key takeaway was that offering free resources doesn’t always ensure accessibility. As they explained, “Just because it is free does not mean people have the time or ability to actually use that resource.” Paid internships and professional development opportunities, similar to models in the business world, were discussed as a better approach for improving skillsets, especially for historically excluded groups in earth science. The Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab’s ESIIL STARS program, aimed at students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), was highlighted as a great example. They also discussed how providing teachers with paid internships to learn data or coding skills could result in broader adoption, as it would empower them to integrate these activities into their classrooms.
In all, the experience was enriching, and they were excited to see where the conversations from these sessions would lead in the future.