The IEDA-CCNY Data Internship Program: Undergraduate Workforce Training Through Immersion in Geoinformatics

Abstract:

Large NSF-funded facilities have a record of longevity and successful production of research tools that provide convenient access to data holdings, reaching far within the geoscience community. They are therefore natural vehicles for training undergraduates for the workforce. The NSF-funded Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance facility (IEDA), based at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, manages diverse geoscience data collections and is running a two-year pilot Data Internship Program with the City College of New York (CCNY). The program matches undergraduate students with senior researchers to compile, process, and analyze data for ingestion in IEDA repositories. The internship provides students with exposure to research areas beyond those currently available at CCNY, giving each student the opportunity to gain experiences and skills in the curation of authentic data. From the facility perspective, the work performed by the interns promotes IEDA data activities and increases awareness of the geoinformatics field amongst tomorrow’s potential geoscientists. In the first year, five interns participated in the program: two interns working on geochemistry projects throughout the academic year, and three working on geophysics projects over nine weeks in the summer. The geochemistry interns successfully engaged in the initial development of MoonDB, an archival database of lunar rock chemistry, and the geophysics interns undertook a compilation and analysis of multibeam swath bathymetry data from Japan’s JAMSTEC marine agency. Interns were involved with handling research-grade geochemical and geophysical data and maintained notes to allow reproducibility of their methods. They learned the basics of the data management software, how to dissect PhP data processing scripts, and how to track down data-related issues. By working at the Lamont campus, interns were exposed to a wide range of seminars given by in-house and visiting scientists. The IEDA interns completed regular assignments directly related to enhancing their understanding of the projects. At the end of the internship, all students reported an increased awareness and appreciation of how their projects fit into the wider field of geoscience and had gained valuable experience in the process of working within geoscience research.