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News & Events

Two new NSF awards to support Neotoma

Neotoma has recently received and launched two new NSF awards, both begun Sept 1, 2024.

The first one, from the NSF-Geoinformatics program, is a renewal of the backbone funding for Neotoma. This work will support several part-time data stewards (supporting the pollen, vertebrate, and aquatic micropaleontological communities) and development work. This development work will focus on 1) continued development and rollout of the DataBUS service to support many-site uploads of data to Neotoma, 2) a better backend structure and front-end interface for viewing and managing taxonomic data, and 3) an embargo management system. PIs and other key personnel on this award: Bob Booth, Jessica Blois, Don Charles, Ed Davis, Simon Goring, Joy Hobbs, Mariena Hurley, Sarah Ivory, Jonathan Nelson, Suzie Pilaar Birch, Alison Smith, and Jack Williams.

The second one, from the NSF-ICBR program (Infrastructure Capacity for Biological Research) will focus specifically on extending Neotoma to better support ancient environmental DNA (aeDNA) and building an aeDNA community of data stewards and contributors. This project aims to enable the next generation of global-scale biodiversity research by integrating aeDNA data with Neotoma. Early efforts here will include 1) holding a workshop in spring/early summer in Europe to start constraining metadata standards, build a data governance structure, and to recruit the inaugural council of aeDNA stewards, and 2) hiring a research associate/postdoctoral researcher in early 2025 to lead data curation for the to-be-launched constituent database. PIs on this award: Trisha Spanbauer, Simon Goring, Amy Myrbo, Jonathan Nelson, and Jack Williams, with essential support provided by many members of the SedaDNA Society

These successes and Neotoma’s continued growth are a testament to the collective efforts and a lot of hard work by a lot of people! So, thank you all for your support of Neotoma and its mission of supporting global-change research and education via open, ethical, and expert-curated data and services for paleoecological and paleoenvironmental data.

Posted October 01, 2024 by Jack Williams