| New NEON, Inc. CEO to take Helm in March |
NEON, Inc. has selected Dr. Russ Lea to manage the construction and operations of its continental-scale observatory as Chief Executive Officer. He joins NEON, Inc. from his most recent position as vice president for research at the University of South Alabama (USA), where he managed research growth across the institution, including interdisciplinary research efforts, resource development and orchestration of all phases of research administration. Prior to that, he served as vice president for research at the University of North Carolina and associate vice chancellor for research at North Carolina State University.
Dr. Lea has a distinguished history of establishing a clear vision for organizations and using it to implement positive change, in addition to extensive experience in scientific and academic research. He also has extensive experience in managing and procuring funding for large-scale projects. For more details, see the news item on our newly deresigned website. |
| $91M in MREFC Requested for NEON in FY13 Request |
The President's FY2013 budget request for NSF was $7.4B, a 4.8% increase over the FY2012 levels. $5.98B is requested for the Research and Related Activities account, a 5.2% increase over FY2012 levels. The Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) account which funds the capital construction costs for research facilities like NEON and the Oceans Observatories Initiative (OOI) has a request of $196.17M, a -0.4% decrease over FY2012.
Under the MREFC account, $91M is requested for NEON, $65M for OOI, $25M for the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope, and $14.17M for the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. NEON's future capital construction costs are estimated at $98.2M, $91M, and $80.66M for FY2014, FY2015, and FY2016 respectively. The NSF budget request found on NSF's website describes the planned activities under the requested FY13 funds. Interested readers are encouraged to download the document for details. |
| NEON to Begin Construction on First Three Sites |
NEON will break ground on three sites starting early Summer 2012: Ordway-Swisher Biological Station in Florida, Harvard Forest in Massachussetts, and Central Plains Experimental Range in Colorado. NEON anticipates funding from the National Science Foundation of approximately $60M for FY2012, which will allow NEON to begin construction on the three sites plus an additional six to eight sites by the end of the year.
The first three NEON sites are expected to be completed and publicly streaming limited data in late 2013, and to be in full operations by 2014. Completion of a NEON site, which includes the physical infrastructure, sensor installation, and field data collection, can take anywhere from one to three years, depending on permitting, weather and other factors. Sites are considered fully operational when all physical infrastructure and data collection procedures are in place and sensor and field data are being collected and are streaming. For more information, see the news item on our newly redesigned website. |
Save the Date: 2012 Annual Membership Meeting
(October 17 - 18) | We are excited to bring you our first joint event between the Association for Ecosystem Research Centers (AERC) and NEON, Inc. This year's NEON, Inc. annual meeting will be on October 17 (Wednesday) in Washington, DC immediately before the AERC annual meeting. All AERC and NEON meeting events will be open to registered attendees, providing a rich suite of opportunities to learn about emerging topics and network with scientists from different communities.
Following the full-day NEON meeting on Wednesday, attendees will have a number of events to choose from on October 18 (Thursday) morning. Options include the AERC Congressional Briefing and NEON workshops. This is followed in the afternoon by an AERC scientific symposium. For those of you who have not attended an AERC meeting, please see the agenda for the AERC 2011 Annual Meeting.
The detailed agenda and staging of joint events is still being worked out, but we hope to release more information as the date draws closer. As has been the practice in recent years, NEON, Inc. will support a limited number of travel awards for early career scientists. For now, please save the date for the first joint AERC -- NEON event! |
| Climate Science Day 2012 |
Four NEON, Inc. sponsored individuals from our member institutions attended Climate Science Day (CSD) 2012. The award recipients are Jasmine Crumsey (University of Michigan), Christopher Gambino (Washington State University), Zhao Ma (Utah State University), and Samantha "Sam" Wisely (University of Florida). Rachel Gallery (University of Arizona) who participated in CSD 2011 joined Hongyan Luo (NEON, Inc.) and Jeffrey Taylor (NEON, Inc.) in this year's event.
On January 30 (Monday), Sam Wisely joined Brian Wee at the United States Global Change Research Program offices for a briefing on community engagement in the National Climate Assessment process. On January 31 (Tuesday) morning, the NEON CSD participants met up with NEON Chief Science Officer David Schimel to acquire tips about his previous interactions with Members of Congress. This was followed by a visit to a meeting of the National Academies' Board on Research Data and Information, where Board co-chair Fran Berman acknowledged the NEON guests at the start of the session. The rest of the day was taken up by a half-day training session for all CSD participants at the AAAS building.
The next day (February 1 Wednesday), participants broke up into small teams of two lead by a facilitator and visited the offices of Members of Congress. You can read about the participants' experience which was covered by various media: AAAS, the University of Michigan, Utah State University, HJNews.com, ClimateWire (a Capitol Hill subscription-based news service), and the NEON blog. |
| USDA ARS' LTAR in FY2013 Budget Request |
As highlighted in the October 2011 update, the leadership teams of NEON and the USDA ARS Long-Term Agro-Ecosystem (LTAR) Network have engaged in a number of discussions about shared measurements and complementary activities. The LTAR will enable multidisciplinary research and funding efforts addressing regional and national scale questions of maintaining or enhancing agricultural sustainability, environmental quality, and ecosystem goods and services in agricultural landscapes using shared research protocols. This will ultimately contribute to understanding agro-ecosystems function at multiple scales (i.e., fields to watersheds or landscapes) to realize the potential to double crop production at the landscape scale.
In the FY13 budget request to Congress, the USDA requested a total of $9M to enhance ongoing research and environmental monitoring in existing infrastructure and coordinate some of its existing experimental watersheds and ranges as the core of a LTAR network. This network will link ARS sites with partner sites operated by universities, other research institutions, NEON, and/or other Federal agencies. This enhanced network, collaborating with these other organizations and reaching out for partnerships in other land-based research networks, will enable multidisciplinary research and funding efforts addressing regional and national scale questions of maintaining or enhancing agricultural sustainability, environmental quality, and ecosystem goods and services in agricultural landscapes using shared research protocols.
Future updates will describe potential USDA ARS-NEON collaborations in more detail. |
| Science, Data, and Informatics Conferences and Workshops |
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These are conferences of potential interest to the NEON community:
- Software Tools for Sensor Networks Training Workshop, 2012 May 1-4, Albuquerque, NM: This workshop is designed to introduce several options for managing streaming sensor data, discuss requirements for sensor data management systems and best practices in quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC).
- Data Integration in the Life Sciences, 2012 June 28-29, College Park, MD: This is the 8th in a series on international conferences that aim at fostering discussion, exchange, and innovation in research and development in the areas of data integration and data management for the life sciences.
- International Interdisciplinary Conference on the Environment, 2012 June 30 - July 3, Portland, Maine: The conference is motivated by the increasing need to combine ideas and research findings from different disciplines to enhance our understanding of the interactions between the natural environment and human institutions.
- iEvoBio, 2012 July 10-11, Ottawa,Canada: The goal of iEvoBio is to catalyze the development of new tools and to increase awareness of the possibilities offered by existing technologies (including: reusable toolkits, mega-scale data analysis, visualization techniques, and others).
- Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, 2012 July 12-13, Seattle, Washington: The Climate Change Conference is for any person with an interest in, and concern for, scientific, policy and strategic perspectives in climate change.
- Phenology Conference, 2012 September 10-13, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: This conference aims to bring together experts from around the world in all sub-fields of phenology and related disciplines. The overall theme of the conference is "Future Climate and the Living Earth."
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| Science-policy, Science Communication, and Public Engagement Conferences and Workshops |
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These are conferences of potential interest to the NEON community:
- AAAS Forum on Science & Technology Policy, 2012 April 26-27, Washington, DC: The annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy is the conference for people interested in public policy issues facing the science, engineering, and higher education communities.
- AGU Science Policy Conference, 2012 April 30 - May 3, Washington, DC: This new meeting will focus on the science that helps inform policymakers' decisions related to natural hazards, natural resources, oceans, and the Arctic.
- Colloquium on the Science of Science Communication, 2012 May 21-22, Washington, DC: The colloquium will survey the state of the art of empirical social science research in science communication and will focus on research in psychology, decision science, mass communication, risk communication, health communication, political science, sociology, and related fields on the communication dynamics surrounding issues in science, engineering, technology, and medicine.
- AMS Summer Policy Colloquium, 2012 June 3-12: The American Meteorological Society Summer Policy Colloquium brings a select group of graduate students and professionals to Washington, D.C. for an intense, ten-day immersion in atmospheric policy.
- Conference on Public Participation in Scientific Research, 2012 August 4-5, Portland, Oregon: This conference will convene science researchers, project leaders, educators, technology specialists, evaluators, and others from across many disciplines to discussing advancingthe field of Public Participation in Scientific Research.
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| Other Partner News |
- ESA 2011 Annual Report Available. ESA's annual report for 2011 is now available. Highlights include: a new initiative to contribute to a more sustainable relationship between society and the biosphere, more rapid publication of research through ESA journals, a guidebook on policy engagement, new reports on air pollution and the environmental impacts of biofuels, and exciting projects and programs fostering ecological education.
- LTER Data Management Position Paper. The position paper, Data Management for LTER: 1980 - 2010, was independently prepared by Dr. Robert J. Robbins, a member of the 30 Year LTER Review Committee. This position paper is not part of the LTER 30 Year Review Report but is provided by the BIO Advisory Committee without comment or endorsement as an independent perspective regarding LTER data management.
- New DataONE Website. DataONE has launched a new website complete with additional resources. The website sports an updated Best Practices and Software Tools Catalog, borne from the effort of multiple individuals including many from the ESIP community. Complementing these is a Primer on Data Management for the beginning user.
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| INNGE Survey on Mathematical Training Needs |
Many ecologists find their discipline increasingly quantitative. Despite this, there is no clear consensus on what should be the basic mathematical training of ecologists. The International Network of Next Generation Ecologists (INNGE) designed a short and anonymous questionnaire to assess your needs. The survey is targeted at early-career scientists (PhDs, postdocs), although everybody is welcomed to provide their input.
INNGE was initiated by early career ecologists active in five ecological societies across three continents. One of the objectives of INNGE is to further strengthen national and regional societies by facilitating joint initiatives and promoting communications. There are various ways to stay in-touch with developments at INNGE: see the INNGE site for details. |
Solicitations of Potential Interest to the NEON Community
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Please click the respective links to check the original source of information. The abbreviated text below may not reflect amendments to the original announcements, and may not reflect the original intent of the solicitation. The "New" icons indicate recent new announcements (includes announcements for regular solicitations), and not necessarily new programs. These are primarily, though not limited to, NSF solicitations. Not all new announcements are included in the list below.  Building Community and Capacity for Data-Intensive Research in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences and in Education and Human Resources (BCC-SBE/EHR) - Excerpt: The purpose of this announcement is to encourage submission of proposals for activities that will enable communities to develop visions for next-generation data and specific areas of research these data would enable; to build research and management teams for the integration of research, data, and data infrastructure, including automated and other analysis tools; and to prototype aspects of a proposed next-generation infrastructure. Successful proposals will outline activities that will have significant impacts across multiple fields by enabling new types of data-intensive research. Investigators should think broadly and create a vision that extends intellectually across multiple disciplines and that includes--but is not limited to--the SBE or EHR sciences.
- Critical Dates: May 22, 2012
- EOL Education Innovation Challenge
- Excerpt: The EOL Education Innovation Challenge is an international competition that aims to stimulate the development and implementation of educational software tools, services, games and activities involving the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). The competition seeks to highlight the most scalable and innovative applications that facilitate learning, participation, and the sharing of information about biodiversity, ecological relationships, and natural history. Target audiences can include the general public, citizen scientists, and learners of all ages in both formal and informal settings. Entries should make use of EOL content, tools and services and be designed for use on the web and/or mobile devices.
- Critical Dates: March 23, 2012
- Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER)
- Excerpt: This solicitation formalizes the basic requirements and expectations of all Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) proposals. At the current time, the LTER program is accepting only renewal proposals from existing projects. Should funds become available to support new sites, a Dear Colleague Letter or a revised solicitation will be released specifying the criteria for an open competition.
- Critical Dates: March 21, 2012
- Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models (EaSM)
- Excerpt: This is the second in a series of EaSM solicitations (see NSF Program Solicitation 10-554 for the first EaSM solicitation). It remains focused on the prediction of future climates and their consequences for human systems on time scales of several decades and shorter and global to regional and finer spatial scales. A time span of several decades is chosen because within this timeframe modeled climate change responses appear to be insensitive to CO2 forcing scenarios. Moreover, adaptation planning and implementation is carried out on roughly these time scales. This solicitation will not consider research involving varying CO2 forcing scenarios beyond the next several decades. The long-term EaSM Program goals (see the Synopsis and Program Description Section) remain essentially the same; however, some of the specific areas of interest related to those goals have changed.
- Critical Dates: April 20, 2012
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| Submit a Comment / Suggestion (Anonymous) | Submit a comment
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Key Dates in 2012
| 5/10 - 5/11: Board Meeting (Boulder, CO)
8/5 - 8/10: ESA Annual Meeting (Portland, OR)
9/30 - 10/5: EcoSummit 2012 (Columbus, OH)
10/17 - 10/18: NEON, Inc. Annual Meeting (Washington, DC)
10/18 - 10/19: AERC Annual Meeting (Washington, DC)
12/6 - 12/10: AGU Annual Meeting (San Francisco, CA) |
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