Kelp tells all?

“When we finally enter one of the remaining patches of kelp, the contrast is incredible: Harbor seals frolic. Fish swim from floor to surface among emerald green fronds. The experience has been compared to a cathedral, and I can see why: light comes through the canopy above like a living stained glass window.”

NCEAS postdoc Joshua Smith weighs in on insights from long-term kelp monitoring.

A Major Milestone

“Half of the 2022 class has already secured post-graduate positions, including jobs, fellowships and spots in doctoral programs. It’s a testament to the students’ abilities, the demand for environmental data scientists and the esteem of UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School within the environmental science community.”

Learn more about our first cohort of Masters of Environmental Data Science students, who graduated last month.

DEIJ Resource of the Month

Indigenous Data Sovereignty
Online Book by Phoebe Racine
This book (curated by a UCSB PhD Student w/the NCEAS Arctic Data Center) is an ever-evolving annotated reading, podcast, and resource list for understanding ethical concerns and data issues around working with Indigenous people as an environmental scientist.

SciComm Resource of the Month

Getting Started on LinkedIn
A Guide for Scientists
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for personal branding as a scientist, especially for finding jobs, but it can be intimidating to dive in. We love this guide from the NCEAS communications team that’s filled with tips and tricks for this flavor of social media.

Data Science Resource of the Month

R for Excel Users
Tutorial by Julie Lowndes and Allison Horst
With NCEAS Senior Fellow Julie Lowndes giving a keynote at this week’s R studio conference, we are revisiting her great guide from the 2020 meeting on how to use R if you are used to data analysis in excel.

Scientist Spotlight:
Jamie Montgomery,
Academic Coordinator for the MEDS Program

“My first exposure to data science was through my masters degree at Bren, and the master’s group project was my first opportunity to get my hands dirty with code. It was so powerful to realize what I could do with a programming language—the questions I could begin to ask and find answers to.”

Synthesis Spotlight:
Environmental Justice Implications of Food’s Footprint

Given the large footprint of many foods, and the tendency for such impacts to be pushed to places where people with less resources or power live, there is great risk for food production to exacerbate issues of environmental justice. Global food production not only needs to become more sustainable, but also more equitable.

Opportunities at NCEAS

NCEAS California Deserts Data Fellow
Apply by August 3, 2022
Calling all desert and data lovers! We are looking for a new data fellow to tackle projects around environmental science in California deserts! UCSB is an AA/EOE, including disability/vets.

NCEAS Research Software Developer
Apply by August 4, 2022
Are you passionate about designing and building tools for open science? NCEAS is seeking a cluster hire of software designers and developers to join our dynamic team. UCSB is an AA/EOE, including disability/vets.

LTER Working Group Request for Proposals
Apply by October 12, 2022
The Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network office at NCEAS is seeking proposals to fund 2-4 working groups to synthesize over 40 years of time-resolved ecological and environmental data across a range of ecosystem types!

MEDS Capstone Request for Proposals
Apply by October 14, 2022
The Bren School at UCSB is looking for agencies, companies, individuals, or organizations facing environmental challenges to submit projects for the next cohort in our Masters of Environmental Data Science program.

Papers We’re Reading

From polyps to pixels: Understanding coral reef resilience to local and global changes across scales
Landscape Ecology
Coral reefs provide vital marine diversity and economic services, but tracking their local or global resiliency gets complicated. An NCEAS data training workshop took on the challenge.

Environmental persistence of the world’s most burdensome infectious and parasitic diseases
Frontiers in Public Health
This review paper synthesized data from 150 parasites and pathogens to better understand connections between disease and environment, finding persistent links.

Sources and discharge of nitrogen pollution from agriculture and wastewater in the Mesoamerican Reef region
Ocean & Coastal Management
Nitrogen pollution is a big threat to coastal habitats, especially in the tropics. The biggest contributor? This NCEAS led publication weighs in: agriculture, not tourism.