About the Workshop

Workshop report now available

The workshop report can be downloaded here.

About the Workshop

Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), with support from the National Science Foundation, is sponsoring a visioning and capacity-building workshop to motivate and energize NEREID’s work with academia, industry, and research communities to: identify efforts to conduct research, develop tools, and engage with and educate learners and policymakers in anticipation of developing a large-scale convergence effort in Earth and space sciences (see below for more information on NSF's Convergence Accelerator program). The 2-day workshop will kick-off the work of NEREID by bringing stakeholders together to build an interdisciplinary community of Earth-space data science learning and practice; to begin to develop and disseminate research-based best practices and curricular resources in teaching and learning with Earth-space data; to elicit diverse points of view and enfranchise underrepresented groups; to identify knowledge and policy gaps and develop strategies that will more effectively address those gaps. Further, it will conceptualize a process to help identify: potential participants in a NEREID convergence accelerator; deliverables in terms of tools, data and workforce development; and to produce a white paper and road map to advance NEREID’s goals.

The workshop will take place in the retreat-like environment of the Green Bank Observatory located in the National Quiet Zone of the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. During the workshop, participants are expected to:

  • Engage with data, tools, and resources both available on site, and that they bring with them;

  • Provide access to, or do demonstrations of data systems, tools, and cyberinfrastructures to better understand the state of earth and space data, tools and resources:

  • Identify needs and gaps relating to interoperability, usability and relevance to interdisciplinary research, policy, and learning; and

  • Envision the future trajectory of Earth and space data toward the goal of developing a roadmap and white paper that can provide the basis for a convergence accelerator effort to continue the work.

What is the Convergence Accelerator and what role does NEREID play?

NEREID is funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Convergence Accelerator (C-Accel) program. The goals of the C-Accel program are to accelerate use-inspired convergence research in areas of national importance, and to initiate convergence team-building capacity around exploratory and potentially high-risk research within particular topics or tracks. It brings teams together in which all members are focused on a common research goal of national importance, but separately may be pursuing many different approaches to that goal. C-Accel workshops--such as NEREID--are in response to NSF’s request for input from industry, institutions of higher education, non-profits, government entities, and other interested parties on future NSF C-Accel tracks, in order to refine convergence research ideas and provide formal feedback to NSF about the value and feasibility of those ideas. The NEREID Workshop will result in a report to NSF on Harnessing the Data Revolution (one of NSF’s 10 Big Ideas) through a convergence of earth and space data. This information will be used by NSF to assess whether NEREID will be useful in formulating a future NSF C-Accel track. Future tracks should be suitable for a multidisciplinary, convergence research approach; should address a grand challenge problem; should have the potential to leverage partnerships between industry and academic researchers; and should have a high probability of resulting in deliverables that will benefit society within a fixed term. All concept information submitted for future NSF C-Accel tracks is subject to the Privacy Act. The information submitted through the final report will help NSF's internal planning of future NSF Convergence Accelerator activities. Summary information may be presented publicly in aggregate form. It will also help AUI understand the value of the convergence of Earth and space data for building research and education capacity among practitioners, educators and policymakers.

Draft Agenda

Wednesday Nov 20

Participant arrival

· Registration and pre-workshop surveys Residence

5:00 Dinner Drake Lounge

6:30 Reception/Orientation Drake Lounge

· Spotlight sign-up

· Drake Equation challenge kick-off

Thursday Nov 21/Day One: Terrain

8:00 Breakfast Cafeteria

9:00 Welcome and introductions StarLab Room, Science Center

9:30 Why NEREID? Tim Spuck

9:45 Charge for the meeting Steve Uzzo

10:00 Agenda Review Catherine Cramer

10:15 Spotlights Round 1

  • Dan Fuka

  • Elena Yulaeva

  • Shelley Olds

10:50 Coffee Break

11:05 Spotlights Round 2

  • Bob Downs

  • Bryan Heidorn

  • Randy Kochevar

  • Ed Summers

12:00 Lunch Cafeteria

12:45 Tour of GBO and Science Center meet in cafeteria

2:30 Spotlights Round 3 (remote presentations)

  • Laura Trouille

  • Margaret Mooney

  • Leigh Peake

  • Elizabeth Joyner

3:15 Coffee Break

3:30 Spotlights Round 4

  • Kartik Sheth (remote)

  • Sue Ann Heatherly

  • Tiffany Wolbrecht

  • Jim Hammerman

  • Gretchen Stahlman

4:00 Building the current landscape

5:00 Dinner Cafeteria

6:30 Evening activity: 40-foot radio telescope demo

8:00 Social Drake lounge

Reminder: teams need to find time for Drake Challenge!

Friday Nov 22/Day Two: Blast Off

8:00 Breakfast Cafeteria

9:00 Welcome back, charge for the day SkyLab

9:10 Talk: Chile’s Data Observatory Jose Guridi

9:30 Exploring online-accessible astronomy databases - Tim

9:50 Exploring SuAVE/Data Discovery Studio - Ilya

10:45 Coffee Break

11:00 Earth-space domain brainstorm (two groups)

12:00 Lunch Cafeteria

1:15 Convergence brainstorm small groups

2:15 report outs

2:30 2nd-best-idea write-ups - individual or group

3:15 Coffee Break

3:30 Report outs

4:00 Expectation for report - timeline, process - draft report in Google doc - workshop report on website -

Next steps - where is NEREID going? - how to create community? What are people willing to do? - group discussion

Post-workshop survey

5:00 Dinner Cafeteria

7:00 Drake Challenge presentations Drake Lounge

8:00 Social Drake Lounge

Saturday Nov 23

Breakfast

Departure