Fear of falling?

“When we talk about managing projects to help us contribute, reuse, collaborate, and fail safely, we are talking about GitHub”

Julie Lowndes and Allison Horst have created a new Openscapes illustrated series that tells a story about why GitHub is so powerful for supporting, reusing, contributing, and failing safely.

From groan to growth

“As researchers engaged in transdisciplinary problem-solving, we know the value of diverse perspectives. We also know how common it is for groups to run into challenges when trying to learn from diverse ideas.”

NCEAS senior fellow Carrie Kappel offers tips and tools for navigating collaborations.

DEIJ Resource of the Month

Guided Mid-year DEI Assessment
Erin-Kate Escobar Consulting
We love this resource guide that includes a set of ten questions for reflecting on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice actions that you, your organization, or your committee have taken so far this year. Slower summer months are a great time to check in on goal progress!

SciComm Resource of the Month

The Measure of Things
A Comparative Search Engine
Synthesis science often generates esoteric quantitative data like “70 million tonnes of wild caught seafood” that can be hard to connect to the real world. We love this online search engine called The Measure of Things, which helps ground numerical data. For example, 70 million tonnes - that’s about 200 times heavier than the empire state building!

Data Science Resource of the Month

Making Animated Maps
Tutorial by Haley Fox Epperly
This tutorial, published as a quarto document by an NCEAS Data Analyst, gives a great step by step walkthrough on creating an animated map using the R package {gganimate}. She covers scraping the data, making the map, investigating outliers, and animating.

Scientist Spotlight:
Natasha Haycock-Chavez
Engagement & Outreach Coordinator for the
Arctic Data Center

“When I was looking for jobs, I knew I wanted to continue working in the Arctic research space, and ideally, I wanted my work to continue supporting Indigenous peoples in the Arctic. This job allows me to do that through integrating data ethics and Indigenous Data Sovereignty into a lot of the content that we produce.”

Synthesis Spotlight:
LTER Global Analysis
of Multi-Year Drought
Effects on Terrestrial Ecosystems

Drought impacts on terrestrial ecosystems have increased globally over the last century, with models forecasting droughts becoming more frequent, extreme, and extensive. This group will synthesize data from global drought manipulation experiments to understand how ecosystems change in their response over time.

Opportunities at NCEAS

NCEAS Data Training Program Manager
Apply by June 27, 2022
Are you passionate about data science and teaching? We are looking for a new program manager to help design and implement curriculum for everything from workshops to short courses! UCSB is an AA/EOE, including disability/vets.

Arctic Data Center Science Communications Intern
Apply by July 11, 2022
If you want to gain skills in science communication and are excited about data science and the Arctic, this paid internship is for you! The Arctic Data Center seeks a current UCSB undergraduate or graduate student for 10-15 hours a week.

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

Avoiding Critical Thresholds by Effective Monitoring
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
How do you monitor an ecosystem to maximize societal benefits while minimizing risk? This paper by the NCEAS Ocean Tipping Points working group explores this tradeoff.

Co-production of Knowledge and Strategies to Support Resilient Fisheries
ICES Journal of Marine Science
In line with the UN Oceans Decade, this SNAPP (Science for Nature & People Partnership) working group proposes a framework for stakeholders to scientists to support fisheries.

LTER 40 Year Review
National Science Foundation
The fourth decadal review, which relied on a 2019 Network self-study, is now public and ready just in time to inform planning at the 2022 LTER All Scientists’ Meeting.