European Geosciences Union
Division on Earth and Space Science Informatics
President: Jens Klump (essi@egu.eu)
Deputy President: Jane K. Hart
(jhart@soton.ac.uk)
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 standardization, spatial data infrastructure interoperability, semantics services, quality and uncertainty information encoding and propagation, geospatial data processing, environmental model accessability, big data management, and data visualization 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 2021 Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award is awarded to Alice Fremand for her major contributions towards establishing the data centre for geothermal data in Alsace (Centre de Données de Géothermie Profonde, CDGP) as a state-of-the-art research data repository.
The 2020 Ian McHarg Medal is awarded to Paul Wessel for outstanding contributions to developing open-source software, including Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), for the Earth and space sciences that have enabled thousands of research projects and papers.
This year’s EGU General Assembly features a complete conference experience, from ten keynote sessions and a Jobs and Careers Centre to a Kids Art activity and #ActualLivingScientist initiative. vEGU21 will also include many ways to connect with colleagues and friends, including networking events on Gather.town and a Games Jam.
To help guide you through this new virtual experience, we’ve pulled together the resources you need to get the most out of vEGU21. These include our Top 10 tips for promoting good online engagement – for both conveners and participants – plus tips to balance your experience so you’re ready for all the vPICO sessions the second week. There’s also a blog to let you know how to create an accessible (and effective) presentation.
Last but not least, we’d like you to meet three wonderful people who are helping communicate all this information to you. We hope you have a fun and fulfilling meeting!.