The National Science Foundation is investing $20 million over a five-year period in the development of a new national center for diversifying environmental data science.
The Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab will be led by the University of Colorado Boulder in collaboration with the agency’s CyVerse and facilitate collaborative scientific research involving diverse environmental data sources.
“Combining, analyzing and synthesizing the wealth of open environmental data will advance our ability to predict changes in the environment and for life on Earth. ESIIL’s efforts will make these data usable by everyone, from researchers to educators and policymakers,” said Joanne Tornow, assistant director of NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences.
ESIIL’s open Collaborative and Scalable Environment cyberinfrastructure will connect environmental scientists to various data sources such as NSF’s National Ecological Observatory Network, Long-Term Ecological Research Network, Ocean Observatories Initiative and Critical Zone Collaborative Network.
The center will also open internship opportunities for science, technology, engineering and mathematics students and faculty members from academic institutions that serve underrepresented groups.
