NEON Leaders to Address the NCSE Conference

Three senior planners of the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) will provide a project update at the National Council for Science and the Environment Conference in Washington, D.C., February 3-4, 2005.

NEON co-director Bruce Hayden will address the complexities of "Designing Ecological Forecasting Systems" at a roundtable/plenary panel. Hayden will describe the process of sharpening NEON's focus as the project evolves toward its specific build-out design. Hayden will also address issues related to how observatories support the science needed to generate forecasting models, supplying data that is crucial to running the models and evaluating their effectiveness as forecasting tools.

In a second presentation, Hayden will provide NCSE conference-goers with an overview of the NEON project. Bill Michener, co-director for informatics and technology, will describe the 21-month NEON design process that will result in a detailed planning document by June 2006. Finally, NEON project manager Jeffrey Goldman will discuss the results of the first meetings of the Neon Design Consortium (NDC) in Los Angeles, January 4-6, 2005: the draft committee reports that focus on eight science challenges, technical infrastructure, education, and the formation of NEON, Inc.

The general public and members of the science community are invited to read and comment on any NEON committee reports that interest them. The first-round reports are available now; revised and expanded drafts will be posted following NDC meetings in March and June, 2005.

Other notable speakers at the NCSE 5th National Conference on Science, Policy, and the Environment include: Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation; James Gustave Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; and Adm. Conrad Lautenbacher, Administrator, NOAA. For details about the NCSE conference, go to: http://www.ncseonline.org/.

Posted by djohnson on Thursday January 27, at 3PM.