Eventos
Yan Xu
Microsoft
Microsoft Research Senior Program Manager
Redmond, WA, USA
Yan is responsible for research partnerships with academia, industry, and government related to data mining, high-performance computing, workflow automation, and data visualization for research in earth, energy and environment. She is also responsible for the Computational Education for Scientists effort, which aims at infusing computational thinking into science education.
She joined Microsoft Research in March 2006. Prior to working at Microsoft Research, Yan was a Sr. Software Architect and worked for several startup software companies for over ten years. Yan received her Ph.D. in Physics from McGill University, Canada.
Abstract
Enhance the Norms of Environmental eScience
In July 2010, over 50 thought leaders in environmental science and computer science gathered at the Microsoft Environmental Research Workshop (ERW2010). The event focused on computational challenges in environmental research, case studies of environmental research that define software innovation in the field; and technologies that enable or advance environmental public awareness or citizen science. Clear consensus reached through this event is the following:
• It is all about data and standard; but one grand data standard will not work for all sub-areas in environmental research.
• The problem is not lacking of data standards, but lacking of tools that enable adoption of standards. • Norms of technology use - Excel is widely used for manipulating large datasets as well as the long tail small datasets.
Another important consensus is about the unique challenge for environmental scientists: Their work does not end with scientific papers as for traditional sciences – compelling presentations of their knowledge is as important as the research, because the ultimate goal of environmental science is to influence policy makers and the general public to make positive social impact.
To put these learnings into practice, we are currently developing a new program, Microsoft Environmental Informatics. The program aims at accelerating the data, information, and knowledge transformation of environmental science. An Environmental Informatics Framework, EIF, will be the core offering of this program. EIF is designed to take advantage of the Open Data Protocol (OData) and the popular Microsoft technologies that already have OData baked in, including Excel via PowerPivot, SharePoint, SQL Azure Server with SQL Spatial, and Pivot from Microsoft Live Lab.
The Environmental Informatics program provides opportunities for collaborations such as: • Developing software extensions to EIF. The outcomes are expected to benefit not only the collaborators but also the whole science community in the field. A good example may be an integration of OData and a commonly used data standard by a research community.
• Creating intuitive, informative, and interactive visualization of data, information, and knowledge using Bing Maps, WorldWide Telescope, and other innovative Microsoft technologies. The SINBIOTA 2.0 project, which will be presented at this workshop, is a great example in this area.
• Supporting the emerging new paradigm in environmental research practice – Environmental Observatory Network (EON). The SINBIOTA 2.0 is a good example in this area as well.
Through collaborations with researchers from various disciplines and regions worldwide, we expect to gain clear understanding of what the environmental scientists need from computer science and engineering. By embracing and enhancing the norms of their technology use, we can realize the potential of innovation in both environmental science and computer science.