Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma Candidate Statement

Candidate for Committee for Semantic Technologies Chair

Marshall Ma

I would be honored to continue as the Semantic Technologies Chair. I am an associate professor of computer science at the University of Idaho. I received my Ph.D. in Earth Systems Science and GIS Science from University of Twente, Netherlands in 2011, and then completed postdoctoral training of Data Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. My research focuses on deploying data science in the Semantic Web to support cross-disciplinary collaboration and scientific discovery, with broad interests in complex systems in Earth and environmental sciences, data interoperability and provenance, and exploratory analysis of Big and Small Data. More information is available on my website.

I am affiliated with the ESIP partner Northwest Knowledge Network (now part of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science) at University Idaho. Since 2012, and I've been active in ESIP and other geoinformatics communities. I have served as Geological Society of America – Geoinformatics Division Chair in 2019 and I am currently the Award Committee Chair for the International Association for Mathematical Geosciences. I am also active in several other communities, including AGU, EarthCube, CODATA, and RDA. I attend ESIP meetings regularly and have received several Funding Friday and Incubator awards as PI, co-PI, or advisor. In recent years I have helped introduce ESIP to many students and early-career scientists. ESIP is a ‘down-to-earth’ community where participants focus on methods and technologies that work in the real world. I personally benefit from the kind and generous open science activities from ESIP, and I would like to help ESIP by serving another year.