Planning Workshop: Increasing Capacity for Data-intensive Research in Environmental Biology

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract Many important questions in environmental biology research and education will be addressed by harnessing the wealth of data generated through federally funded research. The rise of big data and rapid development of data-intensive research tools together present unprecedented potential for new discovery. Data-intensive approaches hold the potential to revolutionize scientific process and discovery, offering the ability to work far beyond scales previously imagined - leveraging data produced by sensors from micro-environments to continental scales, and synthesizing across historical and contemporary data that span a diversity from the social to the physical sciences. Achieving this potential depends critically on broader access to and adoption of data-intensive research approaches that remain relatively uncommon in environmental biology education and research. The field of environmental biology has been hampered by the skills and tools to access and use the big data archives. Currently foundational skills in data management, programming, and other computing fundamentals are not consistently taught in environmental sciences curricula; such skills and knowledge are requisite for effectively engaging in data-intensive research. This workshop is designed to explore a way forward for the field of environmental biology to broadly improve skills necessary for data-intensive science. A workshop report including a concrete set of recommendations will be produced and it is anticipated that the workshop will mobilize a network of like-minded advocates for data-intensive research training to raise awareness, and collaboratively lead future activities that raise the level of computing literacy in the environmental biology workforce. The proposed workshop participants are trailblazers involved in these efforts, as well as leaders in environmental biology research and education. The workshop will facilitate collective action and coordinated future approaches that will help to transform exposure to and employment of data-intensive research approaches in environmental biology.