May 5, 2023
Colloquium Topic: Increasing Accessibility of Marine Geoscience Data
The preservation and sharing of scientific research data has become increasingly important as a core aspect of the modern scientific research enterprise. Well-documented publicly available data facilitate scientific reproducibility and enable researchers to leverage pre-existing data products. Publishing data in open-access disciplinary repositories ensures high quality documentation of data supports preservation and discovery for users who are familiar with specific data types and formats, and is a critical foundational step for ensuring that data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR). Additional data stewardship efforts are necessary to increase accessibility of marine geoscience data, by transforming data into high-quality products that can be accessed through multiple interfaces and used by a diverse community of interdisciplinary scientists and the public. Striving to increase data accessibility also promotes open science, avoids redundancy of effort, and maximizes the return on the investment made in acquiring, processing and interpreting marine geoscience data. This presentation will describe complementary data systems that support different stages in the marine geoscience data life cycle that together meet the needs of a diverse user community. From disciplinary data curation and data synthesis focused on marine geoscience data acquired by the US academic community to international efforts to build a complete map of the global seafloor by 2030.
Colloquium Speaker: Vicki Ferrini
Dr. Vicki Ferrini is a Senior Research Scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University, and is the inaugural LDEO Associate Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. After earning an M.S. in Marine Environmental Science and a Ph.D. in Coastal Oceanography, both from Stony Brook University, she shifted to deep sea research and has been working at the intersection of global seabed mapping and geoinformatics for nearly two decades. She has dedicated her career to ensuring that data are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), and is deeply committed to broadening access to marine geoscience data. Vicki leads several projects related to the management and curation of seafloor and sub-seafloor data acquired with ships and submersibles in support of the US academic research community, and has extensive experience in all aspects of the data life cycle. She is the Associate Director of Data Strategy for the National Deep Submergence Facility and the Head of the Regional Center for the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as part of The Nippon Foundation – GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project.