The Assembly of the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP Federation) elected four new member organizations, two of which have an affiliation with RENCI and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, bringing total membership to more than 140 organizations.

Initiated by NASA in 1997, the ESIP Federation is a broad-based, distributed community of data and information technology practitioners spanning government (NASA, NOAA, EPA, USGS, NSF), academia and the private sectors. It is dedicated to transforming research data and information into useful and usable data and information products for decision makers, policy makers and the public. Partnership in the ESIP Federation is open to organizations that work at the intersection of Earth science data and associated technologies.

The new member organizations from UNC are:

• The Data Intensive Cyber Environments Center/DataNet Federation Consortium (DICE). Members of the DICE team include Reagan Moore, DICE Center director, professor in the UNC School of Information and Library Science and chief scientist for data at RENCI; Arcot Rajasekar, SILS professor and RENCI data scientists; Mike Conway, DICE Center researcher; and Antoine de Torcy, SILS research associate and a member of the DICE Center. The DataNet Federation Consortium is an NSF-funded effort to build a national data management infrastructure that involves the DICE Center, SILS, and RENCI.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI)/iRODS Development and Support (RENCI). The iRODS@RENCI research group supports continued development of the integrated Rule Oriented Data System (iRODS) and is developing Enterprise iRODS (E-iRODS), a version of the tool aimed at users needing an enterprise-level data management solution.  Members of the team include Charles Schmitt, director of informatics; Leesa Brieger, senior research software developer; Terrell Russell, data management research scientist; Jason Coposky, senior research software architect and team leader for Enterprise iRODS; and Michael Shoffner, senior research software architect and adjunct instructor at SILS.

“The ESIP Federation is the community space for Earth science data practitioners looking to expose their technical work and to learn about the work of their peers,” said Karl Benedict, ESIP Federation President. “ESIP Federation partners work collectively to improve interoperability among data systems, regardless of who created them.”  Benedict added, “The ESIP Federation does this through an open, collegial environment that focuses on the broader community good.”

ESIP Federation membership is strictly voluntary and the continued growth of its membership reflects the recognition that the ESIP Federation is a dynamic and collaborative forum where data providers, researchers and users gather to exchange valuable information.

According to Benedict, “The steady growth of ESIP Federation membership and the growing diversity of partners showcases the value that the ESIP Federation community provides to its members. The community-led technical exchanges, professional development workshops and peer-to-peer interactions facilitated by the ESIP Federation allow for community solutions to distributed data systems interoperability to emerge.”

The University of South Florida College of Marine Science and the NASA Applied Sciences Program – Health and Air Quality Applications,  also were elected to the federation.

More information: ESIP Federation Website