[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXVIII, Issue 58

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXVIII, Issue 58
Dec.09,2021

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Table of Contents

1. Congratulations to SPA Section Honor Recipients 

2. Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Student Travel Grants

3. OSPA Judges Needed!

4. NASA HQ Citizen Science Announcements

5. Survey on AI-ready Data User Needs

6. SCOSTEP/PRESTO Announcement of Opportunity - Meeting, Campaigns and Database Development

7. MEETING: 11th IAGA/ICMA/SCOSTEP TREND Workshop

8. PRACE Online School “Machine Learning for Heliophysics”

9. JOB OPENING: CIRES/NOAA NCEI Solar Physics Research Scientist

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Announcement Submission Website: http://goo.gl/forms/qjcm4dDr4g


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Congratulations to SPA Section Honor Recipients 

From: Geoffrey Reeves (Geoff at reevesresearch.org)

Please join me in congratulating winners of the SPA sections' awards and honors for 2021. The honorees will be recognized at the SPA Business Meeting 6:00-6:30 CST in Convention Center - 220-222. Please also join us at the SPA Reception and Networking event which will be held immediately afterwards outdoors on the Magnolia Porch - First Floor.

2021 SPA Section Awards:

Fred L. Scarf Award
Luisa Capannolo, Boston University

Space Physics and Aeronomy Richard Carrington Education and Public Outreach Award
Keith M. Groves, Institute for Scientific Research, Boston College
Elizabeth MacDonald, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Sunanda and Santimay Basu International Early Career Award in Sun-Earth Systems Science 
Chao Yue, Peking University

Sunanda and Santimay Basu U.S. Early Career Award for Research Excellence in Sun-Earth Systems Science
Trevor Bowen, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley

Sunanda and Santimay Basu Early Career Innovation Scholar Grant
Florian Mekhaldi, British Antarctic Survey, UK

Edmond M. Dewan Scholarship
Alexandra Wold, University of Colorado, Boulder

2021 Named Lecturers:

Eugene Parker Lecture
James A. Klimchuk, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 

William B. Hanson Lecture
Jonathan J. Makela, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

James Van Allen Lecture
Mei-Ching Hannah Fok, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center 


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Announcing the Winners of the 2021 Student Travel Grants

From: Geoffrey Reeves (geoff at reevesresearch.org)

Congratulations also go out to the SPA section’s winners of this years student travel grants. 

https://www.agu.org/Learn-and-Develop/Learn/Travel-Research-Grants/Fall-Meeting-General-STG

And the winners are (insert drumroll):

Jannetta Robinson
Laura Holley
Victoria Chaparro
Ashna VM
Damen Beverlin
Irvin Dorado
Joshua Ingram
and Leonid Olifer

Special congratulations go to the winner’s of our sections named travel awards the Max Hammond and Frank MacDonald grants:

Adetayo Victor Eyelade
Jose Lozano
Sarah Bruce
and Audrey Robison


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OSPA Judges Needed!

From: Lindsay Goodwin, Sarah Vines, Sam Schonfeld (sarah.vines at jhuapl.edu), The SPA-OSPA Coordinators

Hi Everyone!

The Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (OSPA) judging portal is finally open, and we are looking for student presentation judges.

As a reminder for this year, graduate students are eligible to volunteer as OSPA judges if they are not participating in OSPA. Volunteer judges must be registered to attend AGU, but there is no requirement for in-person attendance. If you are interested, and do not have a presentation entered in the competition, please sign-up to volunteer here by navigating to the “Volunteer” button at the bottom of the OSPA website: https://www.agu.org/Learn-and-Develop/Learn/Student-Competitions/OSPA

Please feel free to reach out to us, your SPA OSPA coordinators, for any questions or issues:

SPA-SA – Lindsay Goodwin, lindsay.v.goodwin at njit.edu
SPA-SH – Sam Schonfeld, samuel.schonfeld.ctr at afresearchlab.com
SPA-SM – Sarah Vines, sarah.vines at jhuapl.edu


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NASA HQ Citizen Science Announcements

From: Elizabeth MacDonald, Abigail Rymer (abigail.m.rymer at nasa.gov)

The Heliophysics Citizen Science Strategic Working Group of NASA HQ (https://science.nasa.gov/heliophysics/programs/citizen-science) announces the following upcoming opportunities for the SPA community. For more information on any of these, please contact Liz MacDonald, elizabeth.a.macdonald at nasa.gov. 

1) Are you interested in starting a citizen science project? In ROSES-2021 Appendix F.9, the 2nd offering of the Citizen Science Seed Funding Program (CSSFP) proposals are due 21 Jan 2022? (https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/solicitations/roses-2021/amendment-41-citizen-science-seed-funding-program-revised-text-and-new-due-dates) 

2) The NASA Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Rapid Response Research (R3) solicitation from the GSFC Computational and Information Sciences and Technology Office will be an opportunity to partner and broaden participation in the area of data science and existing Heliophysics citizen science. A new FY22 solicitation is anticipated to be released in December. For more information, see https://www.nasa.gov/stem/epscor/rapid/index.html 

3) Lastly, we have recently developed a Citizen Science for Scientists Roadshow presentation to provide professional scientists with examples, inspiration and direction to add a Citizen Science element to their work. If you would like to request a presentation from the Citizen Science Roadshow team for your institution, please contact: Mike Cook, michael.r.cook at nasa.gov? 


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Survey on AI-ready Data User Needs

From: Rob Redmon, Tyler Christensen, Douglas Rao (rob.redmon at noaa.gov)

Dear SPA colleagues,

Do you have experience and ideas about what factors make open environmental data easier to use for artificial intelligence or machine learning (AI/ML) applications? Please consider circulating the following survey to data users within our community who may provide valuable insight. 

The survey is open until December 22nd: https://bit.ly/ai-ready-data

See additional details below, and please reach out to Douglas Rao (douglas.rao at noaa.gov) & Tyler Christensen (tyler.christensen at noaa.gov) if you have any questions.

Additional Details:

The Data Readiness collaboration group of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP), an NGO, is conducting a voluntary & anonymous survey to understand user requirements for open environmental data that can enable AI/ML applications (i.e., AI-readiness). NOAA persons lead this group, with members also from NASA, USGS, NSF, & two DOE labs--along with partners in private industry, NGOs, research labs, & universities. http://wiki.esipfed.org/Data_Readiness

This survey may take you 20–25 min to complete & it is open until 22 Dec 2021. Access the survey using this link - https://bit.ly/ai-ready-data.

Your inputs are much needed to help data producers & providers to understand user requirements for AI-ready data and make improvements for open environmental data. These improvements will benefit all AI/ML app developers and general data users with less effort in cleaning & preparing the data for their use cases.

Here’s why we think it’s worth investing your time. To our knowledge, this is the first time that AI/ML practitioners have been asked about their detailed data needs. Your input will be analyzed and compiled as an environmental and Earth data community guideline to:

Inform data providers in evaluating existing open environmental datasets to assess their AI-readiness, helping data users discover data that already meets their needs.

Provide a consistent framework for different data users to assess AI-readiness and ensure data interoperability across different data centers.

Prioritize modernization and improvement efforts to improve open environmental data for AI/ML apps and general uses.

Set community standards for new dataset development. 

We hope this collaborative effort coordinated by the Data Readiness group of ESIP can produce community-driven requirements for AI-ready data and lead to official data standards development to improve the usability of open environmental data.

Thank you so much for your time!


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SCOSTEP/PRESTO Announcement of Opportunity - Meeting, Campaigns and Database Development

From: Patricia Doherty (patricia.doherty at bc.edu)

SCOSTEP’s scientific program PRESTO is now accepting proposals for database development, meetings and campaigns for 2022.  

The Database Proposals should address solar-terrestrial data that are strictly related to one or more PRESTO Pillars and contribute to PRESTO activities.

The Campaigns and Meetings Proposals should be for organizing international campaigns and meetings that are also related to one or more PRESTO Pillars and contribute to PRESTO activities.

To view the PRESTO Pillars, visit the website: scostep.org/presto

The deadline for the proposals is 12/31/2021.  For guidelines on how to apply, please visit the website at: scostep.org/grant-proposals.  

Funding for these proposals should not exceed $5000.

For questions, please contact the scientific secretary at: scostep[at]bc.edu


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MEETING: 11th IAGA/ICMA/SCOSTEP TREND Workshop

From: Jan Lastovicka (jla at ufa.cas.cz)

The 11th IAGA/ICMA/SCOSTEP Workshop "Long Term Changes and Trends in the Atmosphere" will be held in Helsinki, Finland on 30 May - 3 June 2022 as hybrid meeting. The Workshop deals with long-term trends in the ionosphere, thermosphere, mesosphere and stratosphere; URL: https://trends2020.fmi.fi/. Chair of SOC Jan Lastovicka (jla at ufa.cas.cz), chair of LOC Viktoria Sofieva (trends2020 at posti.fmi.fi).

Side meetings: 3rd LOTUS Workshop, ATC workshop.


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PRACE Online School “Machine Learning for Heliophysics”

From: Giovanni Lapenta (giovanni.lapenta at kuleuven.be)

Introduction to machine learning for heliophysics, including an outlook to recent models in machine learning with potential applications to heliophysics. ?During the school the new instruments developed during the EC Horizon 2020 AIDA project will be shown: AIDApy and AIDAdb. These tools are open source software and were designed to simplify the use of machine learning in any heliophysics application. In particular the school will show how to use the main developed modules on AIDApy.

Deadline for application: DEC 23rd 2021

Link: https://events.prace-ri.eu/event/1307/?fbclid=IwAR2z2KLsU57CrkmPsh2XMk9lUa9Tum7frsCn70B4Rj7ke_YBzlBRrltt8Ng


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JOB OPENING: CIRES/NOAA NCEI Solar Physics Research Scientist

From: Don Schmit (schmitd at colorado.edu)

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado has an immediate opening for a Research Associate in solar physics working with NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). The position focuses on the development of the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR) for the Space Weather Follow-On (SWFO) and Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-U) missions. The Research Associate will contribute to the development of the CCOR data pipeline and data products. This position will help oversee NCEI’s contributions to in-flight calibration and validation of CCOR and the development of data tools and data products. They may also assist with other NOAA solar imagery and irradiance projects. A Ph.D. is required, as is US citizenship or permanent residence status. Please find the full job description at the link. Any questions can be addressed to Don Schmit (schmitd at colorado.edu). Applications will begin to be reviewed Dec 3, but will be accepted until the position has been filled. https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=34804


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SPA Newsletter Editorial Team: Peter Chi (Editor), Guan Le (Co-Editor), Sharon Uy, Marjorie Sowmendran, and Kevin Addison

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