2020 Fellowship Program

EDI Fellows 2019
Annual Point Count Breeding Bird Survey at Pepperwood Preserve, one of the 2020 fellowship host sites (photo credit: California Quail (left) & Northern Saw-whet Owl (right) by Gerald and Buff Corsi).


About

We successfully completed our third EDI Summer Fellowship Program (9 June – 14 August 2020). Due to the COVID-19 health situation, we moved the entire program online, including the ecological data publishing training for the fellows. We supported ten fellows who conducted data management and publishing work for host sites located in different parts of the country. For a list of host sites, on-site mentors and fellows, see below. Thanks to the fellows’ and mentors’ effort to regularly meet online, the fellowship was successful in terms of learning about data management and working with scientific teams of the host sites. Each fellow made a significant contribution to publishing the host site’s data, for long-term data preservation, making the data discoverable (in the EDI data repository, DataONE and by internet searches).

For an example of the fellows' engagement with the host projects, see Ashley Whipple’s (fellow with the Pepperwood Preserve) blog entry on “My data’s data: a metadata story”.

Host projects and mentors for training program

  • California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Location: Stockton, CA. Mentor: Dr. Jereme Gaeta (jereme.gaeta@wildlife.ca.gov), Fellow: Madeleine Frick

    • Project description: Archiving historical datasets from the San Francisco Bay Estuary (SFE), including (1) a periodic Delta-wide (freshwater and brackish area of the SFE) shoreline electrofishing survey and (2) a fish survey of Suisun Marsh, an area critical to the ecology of endangered Delta Smelt.

  • Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership. Location: Rockland, ME. Mentor: Phoebe Jekielek (phoebe@hurricaneisland.net), Fellow: Dennise Valadez

    • Project description: Planning for the future: Organizing data and developing data management, data use, and data sharing plans for the Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership.

  • LTER soil organic matter synthesis working group. Location: Tempe, AZ. Mentors: Dr. Stevan Earl (stevan.earl@asu.edu) & Dr. Will Wieder (wwieder@ucar.edu), Fellow: Nathan Haywood

    • Project description: Publishing data from numerous cross-site, coordinated research activities that are contributing to a synthetic analysis of factors controlling the persistence and vulnerability of soil organic matter.

  • Marine Science Institute, University of California SB. Location: Santa Barbara, CA. Mentor: Margaret O’Brien (margaret.obrien@ucsb.edu), Fellow: Judith Sclafani

    • Project description: Harmonizing meteorological data in the EDI repository.

  • Natural Resource Ecology Lab. Colorado State University. Location: Fort Collins, CO. Mentor: Chris Dorich (chris.dorich@colostate.edu), Fellow: Sydney Lewis

    • Project description: Archiving and publishing of a Global N2O Database, along with workflow documents and data products.

  • Organization for Tropical Studies. Location: La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Mentor: Enrique Castro (lead mentor), Eugenio Gonzalez, Orlando Vargas, Deedra McClearn (deedramcclearn@gmail.com), Fellows: Melissa Salva and Eric Johnson

    • Project description: Rescuing Legacy Data on Native Tree Growth in Costa Rica.

  • Pepperwood Preserve. Location: Santa Rosa, CA. Mentor: Dr. Tosha Comendant (tcomendant@pepperwoodpreserve.org), Fellow: Ashley Whipple

    • Project description: Long-term monitoring of climate, hydrology, vegetation, and wildlife in inner Coast Ranges of California.

  • Stroud Water Research Center. Location: Avondale, PA. Mentor: Dr. Charles Dow (cdow@stroudcenter.org), Fellow: Kyle Zollo-Kenecek

    • Project description: Compiling, cleaning, and publishing, stream water quality and quantity time series data collected via low-cost sensors built on an open-source electronics platform at the White Clay Creek stream/watershed.

  • University of California Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL). Location: Mammoth Lakes, CA. Mentor: Dr. Thomas C. Smith (tcsmith@ucsb.edu), Fellow: Claire Pavelka

    • Project description: The Sierra Lakes Inventory Project: non-native fish and community composition of >8,000 lakes and ponds in the Sierra Nevada, California.

  • University of Michigan Biological Station (UMBS). University of Michigan. Location: Pellston, MI

    Mentor: Jason Tallant (jtallant@umich.edu), Fellow: Alex Pawlik
    • Project description: Organize data collected from various federally funded projects at UMBS for publication and work with web based metadata management tools and associated database(s).

Featured data packages

Halbur, M.M., T.L. Comendant, N. Barden, A.L. Whipple, and E. Micheli. 2020. Annual Point Count Breeding Bird Survey at Pepperwood Preserve in the California Coast Ranges 2007-2019 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/65b2df11b736c5b51d5fad90dc4a08e9.

Testimonials

“The task of making environmental data publicly available and reusable is often overlooked. The training that I received during my EDI summer fellowship opened my eyes to the world of data management. Great care and thought are required for good data archiving and EDI provided great resources and training for doing so. The staff at EDI were highly knowledgeable and always willing to help answer my questions. I felt very supported by both my host site and EDI. The fellowship offered a rare combination of training and hands-on experience to learn, practice, and grow my data management skills and I’m very grateful for the opportunity.”

– Ashley Whipple | Fellow at Pepperwood Preserve – (see also Ashley’s blog entry on “My data’s data: a metadata story”)

“I am extremely grateful to have been a part of EDI’s 2020 summer fellowship at the University of California Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory (SNARL). My goal this summer was to clean, organize, and publish the Sierra Lakes Inventory Project, a long-term dataset of community composition for approximately 8,000 lakes in the Sierras. This experience improved my skills in data management and R, as I had to work with ‘real-life’ ecological data. The fellowship also provided an opportunity for me to make an impact on the future of conservation and restoration in the Sierra’s and opened my eyes to the world of data science. I would highly recommend this fellowship to anyone interested in data management and ecology!”

– Claire Pavelka | Fellow at Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Laboratory –

Published data packages

Bartosh, H., B. Peterson, M.M. Halbur, T.L. Comendant, A.L. Whipple, and E. Micheli. 2020. Post-Tubbs Fire Chaparral Floristic Survey at Pepperwood Preserve in the California Coast Ranges 2018-2019 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/958a452d488a54100965e99ecda28fd8.

Halbur, M.M., T.L. Comendant, N. Barden, A.L. Whipple, and E. Micheli. 2020. Annual Point Count Breeding Bird Survey at Pepperwood Preserve in the California Coast Ranges 2007-2019 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/65b2df11b736c5b51d5fad90dc4a08e9.

Jekielek, P.E. and M. Maier. 2020. Spat bag deployment location and spat abundance, size class distribution, and associated fauna for a closed area in coastal Maine, USA, from 2013 to 2018. ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/777b2914bdf6a76510029c0f54e4b58e.

Johnson, C.E., M. Salva Sauri, E. Gonzalez, O. Vargas Ramirez, D.K. McClearn, E. Braker, E. Castro, and A. Sepulveda. 2021. Growth and survival of seedlings of 14 species of lowland rainforest trees planted in the La Guaria Annex (Canada Plot) of La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, in 1986 and measured every six months or every year until 1992 (Part 1 of 2) ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/8910223d4e871fe915d992b7d729c14b.

Matson, P.L., T.S. Bansak, and A.M. Handler. 2020. Nyack Floodplain RiverNet meteorlogical and soil data in Northwest Montana, USA, 2012-2020 ver 3. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/d06570e3c746c4f516fac28be5200c64.

Matson, P.L., T.S. Bansak, and A.M. Handler. 2020. Nyack Floodplain RiverNet surface water and groundwater dissolved oxygen, conductivity, water level, and temperature Northwest Montana, USA, 2012-2020 ver 3. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/d41a8f4cc4174e36b71a3f79e4e5618d.

Nadelhoffer, K., C. Gough, and L. Nave. 2020. Forest tree, woody debris, and soil inventory data from long-term research plots for LTREB at the University of Michigan Biological Station ver 4. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/e43651bde3564e402cd0595e3ef26994.

O’Gorman, C.J., L.P. Bentley, K.M. Everly, and A.L. Whipple. 2020. Specimen Quercus kelloggii survey at Pepperwood Preserve summer 2019 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/6ae5b7174cafbdc95a5b0478081fa11e.

Oviedo-Vargas, D. 2020. High-frequency sensor data collected by Stroud Water Research Center in a meadow reach of White Clay Creek from Janurary 2017 through December 2017 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/b93d82fc592edd9add9a34d2adf5437a.

Oviedo-Vargas, D. 2020. High-frequency sensor data collected by Stroud Water Research Center in a meadow reach of White Clay Creek from February 2016 through December 2016 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/b1a8c851a2340d3395bee11b361e59f9.

R. Vande Kopple. 2020. University of Michigan Biological Station Weather Observations 1980 to Present ver 4. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/ef591b27f6336849868626e48ef588ee.

M. Salva Sauri, E.C. Johnson, E. Gonzalez, O. Vargas Ramirez, D.K. McClearn, E. Braker, E. Castro, and A. Sepulveda. 2021. Growth and survival of seedlings of 14 species of lowland rainforest trees planted in the La Guaria Annex (Canada Plot) of La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, in 1986 and measured every six months or every year until 1992 (Part 2 of 2) ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/9c12c65c7138d7c26b5f35140a42d6cf.

Slater, S.B., C.E. Burdi, J.W. Gaeta, and M.A. Frick. 2020. Delta Smelt Formalin Fixation and Preservation Effects on Fish Weight and Length ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/d4c7a43ba17b2ed1885d42cf0380c1dd.

Sosik, H.M., E. Peacock, and M. Santos. 2020. Abundance and biovolume of taxonomically-resolved phytoplankton and microzooplankton imaged continuously underway with an Imaging FlowCytobot along the NES-LTER Transect in winter 2018 ver 1. Environmental Data Initiative. https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/74775c4af51c237f2a20e4a8c011bc53.