Several different CIESIN staff members contributed to two recent Web-enabled seminars. The Webinar, “Mapping SDG Data Needs to Maize Intensification Plans,” featured five commissioned papers that synthesized recent scientific research on connections between maize intensification and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on identifying possible actions within the SDG framework. Senior research associate Pinki Mondal was lead author of the paper, “Potential of Ecological Intensification of Maize in Sub-Saharan Africa for Achieving Nutrition Goals,” co-authored with Harpinder Sandhu of Flinders University, Cheryl Palm of the University of Florida, and Jessica Fanzo of Johns Hopkins University. The Webinar, which included two 90-minute sessions October 25–26, was organized collaboratively by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the Earth Institute, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Bram Govaerts, associate global director of the CIMMYT Global Conservation Agricultural Program, moderated the Webinar, and CIESIN deputy director Marc Levy served as a discussant, highlighting how data support good decisions in multiple ways, and how high-value and low-cost data options often emerge. CIESIN program manager Minal Patel managed the project. Approximately 100 people attended, including CIMMYT staff in Mexico and eight other CIMMYT global hubs.
Senior digital archivist Robert Downs was one of several presenters in the 2016 GEOSS Interoperability Workshop organized by the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Standards and Interoperability Forum (SIF), under the auspices of the voluntary intergovernmental initiative, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The four-hour online workshop, held October 20, focused on the GEOSS Common Infrastructure and the GEOSS Data Management Principles and related interoperability challenges. During the workshop Downs gave the presentation, “Introduction to GEOSS Data Management Principle 5: Data Traceability,” providing an overview of the state-of-the-art in ensuring that both data providers and users are able to document and understand the lineage of data and all transformations applied to data.