Our Impact & Purpose
Our mission is to empower scientists, managers, and decision makers to advance environmental research and global sustainability through stewardship of environmental data. We address the urgent need for unified, accessible, and enduring environmental information, critical for immediate insights and future discoveries.
This work is guided by our vision of an open-access data commons – deep, diverse, and built on the high-quality, curated contributions of today’s researchers, organizations, and agencies. We build robust data infrastructure, foster a culture of data sharing, and empower the science community to turn data into lasting impact.
Advancing AI for Environmental Insights
Our commitment to high-quality data and active research advances AI and machine learning in environmental science through:
-
Collaborative AI Advancement: Direct collaboration with leading AI researchers ensures environmental science benefits from cutting-edge AI innovations.
-
Targeted AI Projects: Applying AI to model lake ecosystems and using AI for efficient data annotation and discovery overcomes challenges from vast environmental data.
-
High-Quality, Curated Datasets: We provide robust, standardized datasets crucial for training accurate AI/ML algorithms, ensuring reliable AI-driven insights.
-
Enhanced Predictive Modeling: Long-term data enables powerful AI/ML models to identify subtle patterns for improved forecasting and early warning systems.
-
Seamless Data Integration: Our focus on "analysis-ready data" and an "open-access data commons" facilitates integration of diverse datasets, allowing efficient processing by AI/ML models.
Unifying Data for Disaster Resilience
The EDI data repository, with its focus on long-term environmental and ecological datasets, is crucial for disaster prevention and mitigation. This unified approach provides:
-
Predictive Power: Long-term data on environmental health and human impacts enable advanced predictive models for various disasters, allowing for earlier warnings and proactive preparation.
-
Baseline for Change Detection: Decades of environmental observations establish baselines, with deviations serving as early indicators of environmental stresses that may precede or intensify disasters.
-
Informing Post-Disaster Actions: Consistent, long-term data facilitates accurate post-disaster assessment and supports effective recovery efforts by tracking ecosystem restoration and informing resilient rebuilding practices.
Consolidating Fragmented Data for Impact
Environmental research data, often scattered across silos, hinders understanding and action. EDI unifies diverse environmental data into a secure, trusted platform, enabling:
-
Data-Driven Decisions: Empowering evidence-based decisions for community protection, environmental planning, and ecosystem restoration locally and globally.
-
Deeper Ecosystem Understanding: Supporting a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem trends, accurate measurement of conservation outcomes, tracking ecosystem health, and evaluating efforts to safeguard essential services like clean water and biodiversity.
-
Global Accessibility: Ensuring vital environmental research data (over 50 years and supporting thousands of articles) is accessible worldwide, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing.
-
Advancing Environmental Science: Facilitating data access and new analytical tools to accelerate scientific discovery and breakthroughs in climate modeling, conservation, and sustainable resource management.
The Critical Necessity of EDI’s Work
Amid escalating environmental challenges, EDI's unified platform is critical. It enables the transformation of fragmented environmental data into actionable insights, accelerating solutions.
EDI is a strategic national and international asset, safeguarding irreplaceable data for conservation and restoration. This ensures perpetual access to environmental data, amidst political uncertainties and unstable federal funding.
By unifying data, preserving records, and fostering collaboration, EDI profoundly impacts the scientific community and planetary health.
Our Story
The Environmental Data Institute originated from the NSF-funded Environmental Data Initiative project at the Universities of Wisconsin and New Mexico, rooted in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program. The Initiative was shaped by the pioneering work of information managers and scientists, initially focusing on supporting research and stewarding environmental data.
As its services gained broader appeal, managing operations within the university system became challenging. Now a designated 501(c)(3) nonprofit, we have established a more flexible and sustainable funding model to better serve our community.
The Institute continues to value and build upon the collaborative spirit and contributions of information managers and scientists.
Our Team
Our team consists of highly motivated and experienced data practitioners, software developers, and research scientists.
Board Member and Chief Executive Officer
Paul Hanson
Paul Hanson has over 20 years of expertise in ecological and marine science, with extensive experience in utilizing scientific data repositories for open and collaborative research. He is a Distinguished Research Professor and Principal Investigator of the Environmental Data Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a Lead-PI on the Ecological Knowledge Guided Machine Learning initiative.
Treasurer and Director of Informatics
Corinna Gries
Corinna Gries, Director of Informatics and Co-Director of the Environmental Data Initiative, champions open access and reusable environmental research data. A strong advocate for FAIR data principles, she ensures environmental datasets are preserved, discoverable, and accessible.
Software Engineer
Jon Ide
Jon, is a software engineer at EDI, enhancing data submission and quality checking systems. He holds Master's degrees in Data Science, Mathematics, and Computer Science, and has extensive data management expertise from his past technical director roles.
Software Engineer
Roger Dahl
Roger is a full-stack software engineer at the University of New Mexico, specializing in earth science data management. He develops and maintains EDI repository architecture and is a long-time contributor to eco-informatics technology.
Data Scientist
Colin Smith
Colin is a data scientist and tool developer dedicated to advancing data discovery and interoperability. He specializes in software development, data engineering, and semantic technologies, leveraging his background in data management and environmental research to build effective solutions.
Data Scientist
Greg Maurer
Greg Mauer has a background in Ecology and Informatics, and is an Information Manager and Data Scientist at EDI. He supports data curation, outreach, and training, promoting data re-use. Greg also liaises with the LTER Network and its Information Managers.
Outreach Manager
Susanne Grossman-Clarke
Susanne, an environmental scientist, leads outreach, training, and data management. Her background includes climate and ecosystem research, with scientist positions at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Arizona State University, focusing on climate/ecosystem modeling, urban air quality, and climate vulnerability.
Data Science Intern
Sophia Skoglund
Sophia provides curation services for incoming data packages, working side-by-side with EDI users to ensure that data and metadata meet FAIR principles. She is a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison studying the applications of satellite remote sensing for monitoring lake ecosystem dynamics.
Data Science Intern
Emma Marchisin
Emma works with EDI users to review and curate data packages, ensuring high-quality metadata and complience with FAIR data principles, for submission to the repository. Emma is a Master's student at the University of Wisconsin– Madison researching the implementation of machine learning methods to lake water quality modeling.
Legal/Nonprofit Status
The Environmental Data Institute Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to charitable and scientific purposes.