Statement Signell

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Rich Signell

WHY I’M RUNNING: I am running for President because I feel ESIP plays a vital role in communicating standards, tools and techniques for more effective and efficient science across institutional boundaries. The emergence of FAIR and technologies like open science notebooks and science tools for the Cloud are tremendously exciting, yet raise a number of technical and non-technical challenges. I’d like to do what I can to help ESIP address these challenges and make the most of these opportunities.

WHY I PARTICIPATE IN ESIP: There are very few issues concerning effective use of earth science data that are specific to an institution. ESIP is simply the best place to discuss and work through our common problems and successes, get more feedback on our ideas and tools, and leverage our contributions.

LEADERSHIP: I currently supervise a Coastal and Estuarine Dynamics Group at the USGS in Woods Hole, MA, serve on the CF Conventions Standards and CF Governance Committees, am a member of the Pangeo Steering Council and an OSGeo Charter Member. I was the ESIP Information Technology & Interoperability Committee Chair in 2017 and 2018, served as the USGS Rep to the Unidata Users Committee from 2010-2018, and was previously the Chair of the Estuarine and Coastal Modeling Conference and the Gordon Research Conference on Coastal Ocean Modeling. In 2014 I received the DeSouza Award from Unidata, given each year to an “individual whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences.” In 2017 I received the USGS Community for Data Integration (CDI) Leadership and Innovation Award, in part for helping link CDI to the larger ESIP Community.

ESIP PARTNER AFFILIATION: The USGS is a sponsoring member of ESIP.

BIO: Rich Signell is a research oceanographer at the US Geological Survey in Woods Hole. He graduated from the University of Michigan School of Engineering with a B.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science in 1983, obtained an MS in Physical Oceanography from MIT in 1987, and a PhD from the WHOI/MIT Joint Program in Physical Oceanography in 1989. Rich's early work at the USGS focused on dispersion and transport in coastal waters, and included the hydrodynamic simulations for the relocation of Boston’s sewage outfall to clean up of Boston Harbor. He has worked on a number of environmental sediment issues, including Massachusetts Bay, Lake Pontchartrain, and Long Island Sound. He also worked for the NATO Undersea Research Center in La Spezia, Italy from 2001-2004. Rich has a long-standing interest in data management, analysis and visualization, promoting standards and standards-based modeling tools for the last 30 years.