Douglas Rao Candidate Statement
Candidate Name: Yuhan “Douglas” Rao
Nominated Position: Vice President
Bio: Douglas is a research scientist with North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies (NCICS) and is affiliated with NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). He received his Ph.D. in geographical sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on leveraging geoscience data, statistical modeling, and other emerging technology to monitor climate change and its impacts. He currently works to support the development of the emerging NOAA Center for Artificial Intelligence. He also serves as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the Analysis, Integration, and Modeling of the Earth System, a global research project of Future Earth. He is also the recipient of the ESIP Catalyst Award in 2020.
Statement of Interest:
My journey with ESIP started as a Community Fellow for the machine learning cluster between 2018-2020 during the last year of my PhD at the University of Maryland and the first year of my postdoc at NCICS. I never imagined the fellowship would have such an impact on my career trajectory. After joining ESIP, I discovered the world of data management and open science, which was not mentioned during my graduate school time. Since then, I am involved in various ESIP clusters including co-chairing the Data Readiness Cluster and the newly established Wildfires Cluster.
As an early-career researcher, I am passionate about bringing early-career perspectives into the discussion. During my fellowship with ESIP, a few of the community fellows decided to develop a roadmap to improve data management training for graduate students after we all agreed that we and our peers would have benefited from such training. Previously, I also served as a member of the Executive Committee for the Young Earth System Scientists community, an international network of early-career researchers aiming to elevate global early-career researchers’ voices and perspectives in the Earth system science community.
To me, ESIP is a welcoming and enthusiastic community that strives to bring innovation and foster collaboration in geoscience and informatics. These collaborations and innovations are often driven by specific needs or issues related to Earth information. My participation in ESIP is motivated and sustained by learning from the community and contributing to the shared progress that supports the entire Earth information community beyond a single organization or agency. As a candidate for ESIP Vice President, I plan to work with ESIP staff and other volunteer leaders to further strengthen ESIP as a community and an environment that can support robust relationships and collaborations to make Earth science information accessible and actionable to all corners of society.
