New Meetup Group Coming Soon: Data Science for Earth
We are attempting to start up a new meetup group to foster a community and share technical information in the Earth and environmental sciences communities. DETAIL UPDATED 9/21: Our first meeting will be September 27 in HARSHBARGER 110 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm. Our first meeting will be September 26 in ENR2 S225 from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM. All are welcome to come, particularly students and researchers who would like to build expertise in practical and hands on data science topics beyond the classroom.
Please share with any other relevant people or communities.
Where and when (after first meeting)
ENR2 Room TBD, every other Tuesday, from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Motivation
The Earth sciences, broadly defined, are undergoing a revolution where rapidly expanding computational capabilities and the availability of large, public datasets are driving innovations in the research process. The rapid nature of these changes has made it challenging for the geoscience community to coalesce around norms and practices that could advance scientific impact and foster interdisciplinary collaboration.
Goals
To address these challenges within our community, we are starting the “University of Arizona - Data Science for Earth” meetup which is specifically tailored to address several opportunities/challenges:
- Provide an outlet for researchers to share technical advances in the geosciences
- Build community across departments and disciplines for researchers
- Contribute to an open knowledge base to accelerate research
Format
To provide a venue for researchers who are interested in these goals, we are proposing a regular weekly meetup which is informal and opt-in. We envision this effort to begin as an outlet for students and researchers who either work in, or want to learn more about, data science methods applied to geosciences. To support both new students and seasoned researchers, we will use a split agenda which encompasses a 1.5 hour session.
1. (30 minute) Showcase: Researchers present technical aspects of their work. This may include topics highlighting software/data packages which they have been using/developing, sharing educational content they have developed, or providing on-the-ground perspectives.
2. (60 minute) Office hours: This portion is focused on skill-sharing for researchers. We will ask participants to make a 1-2 minute pitch that summarizes their practical, day-to-day research problems that they would like community input from. Based on these topics, we hope that affinity groups will develop around certain topics. The focus of this portion will emphasize building mentorship around computational/data handling techniques.
Get Involved
We are looking to form a steering committee of 4-6 early career researchers to help organize these events, find speakers, and maintain a website and GitHub organization. If you are interested in getting involved or have questions, please email HAS Assistant Professor Andrew Bennett (andrbenn@arizona.edu).