European Geosciences Union
Division on Earth and Space Science Informatics
President: Jens Klump
(essi@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Martina Stockhause
(stockhause@dkrz.de)
As far as informatics and information technology are concerned, the ESSI Division deals with community-driven and multidisciplinary challenges and solutions. This include topics like: data model and metadata standardisation, spatial data infrastructure interoperability, semantics services, quality and uncertainty information encoding and propagation, geospatial data processing, environmental model accessibility, big data management, and data visualisation for scientific discovery.
It is with the deepest sadness that EGU reports the death on 27 March 2021 of Dr. Peter Fox, Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the United States.
Fox was a pillar of the global informatics community and pivotal in establishing the ESSI divisions within both EGU and AGU. In 2012, his peers recognised this contribution when they awarded him the EGU’s Ian McHarg Medal for his role in establishing informatics as a genuine discipline within the Earth Sciences.
To mark Fox’s passing, representatives from EGU, AGU, ESIP, and other organisations have collaboratively authored a remembrance that highlights the impact he had both professionally and personally as a colleague, advocate, mentor and friend. A Kudo Board has also been created for those who wish to leave their own remembrances of Dr. Fox.
The premature passing of Fox is a huge loss for the global Earth and Space Science Informatics community, and his absence will be felt for a long time to come. But it is his family and friends who will feel his passing most keenly, so it is to them that EGU extends its deepest condolences.
Helen Glaves
EGU Vice-President
The 2022 Ian McHarg Medal is awarded to Mikhail Kanevski in recognition of outstanding pioneering innovative research in the field of environmental data mining, in integrating geostatistics and machine learning algorithms and other digital transformations.
The 2022 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Christopher Kadow for outstanding and innovative research in climate informatics, including modelling, prediction, climate change, and the applications of artificial intelligence/machine learning in the field of climate science.
The 2022 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Melanie Lorenz FID GEO: Promoting Open Science for Geosciences
In the January newsletter, researchers explore creative ways to involve non-technical audiences in space studies. An EGU funded outreach project called A Touch of Space Weather is teaching space science to blind and visually impaired children while space plasma physicist Martin Archer shares how researchers can engage more people with space sciences.
We also hear from EGU Head of Communications Hazel Gibson who tells us what we could expect from the European Space Agency’s new JUICE mission. Find out more on EGU blogs now!
As a reminder, registrations are now open for EGU23! Remember to check your inbox for the next monthly Update from our conference organiser Copernicus, arriving early February. If you miss an Update you can find them here where you can subscribe to receive them going forward.