"Enabling Open Access to Scientific Data and Information within
the Modern Knowledge Economy; the Case for a Scientific Commons”
Royal Irish Academy
Dublin, Ireland ~ 12 April 2006
A panel discussion organised by CODATA, the Committee on Data for Science and Technology, under the aegis of the Royal Irish Academy
[ Agenda ] [ Biographies ] [ Background ] [ About CODATA ] [ About Royal Irish Academy ] |
Robert S. Chen
Dr. Chen is CIESIN’s Deputy Director and a Senior Research Scientist. He manages the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), a data center in NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System. He is currently Secretary-General of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science (ICSU). He is an ex officio member on both the U.S. National Committee for CODATA of the U.S. National Research Council and the Task Group on Data and Scenario Support for Impacts and Climate Analysis (TGICA) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Dr. Chen serves as CIESIN’s Technical Representative to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and participates in the U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Historical Data Committee. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute (MERI) of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. In the past, he has served as chair of the NASA Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) Alliance and as a member of the Executive Committee of the NASA Earth Science Information Partner (ESIP) Federation.
At Columbia University, Dr. Chen is a member of the Working Group on Science & Technology Recruiting to Increase Diversity (STRIDE), part of the Earth Institute (EI) ADVANCE Program. He serves on steering committees for the EI Climate and Society Cross-Cutting Initiative and the Center for Hazards and Risk Research (CHRR). In addition to his role as SEDAC Manager, Dr. Chen has managed several cooperative agreements with the FGDC on spatial data management and a project on managing geospatial electronic records with the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). He recently completed a major collaborative project on the assessment of global natural disaster risks with the CHRR, the Hazard Management Unit of the World Bank, and other partners. Dr. Chen has also coordinated CIESIN’s spatial analysis and mapping support to the Millennium Development Project led by EI Director Jeffrey Sachs and oversees other projects on poverty mapping, sustainability indicators, and public health applications of Earth science data.
Prior to joining CIESIN, Dr. Chen served on the faculty of the World Hunger Program at Brown University. He has held research fellowships at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, and the National Research Council in Washington DC. He has served on the Steering Committee of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Postdoctoral Program in Climate and Global Change and on the Committee on Standards for Geographic Data of the Association of American Geographers. He received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds Masters and Bachelors degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Recent Publications
Dilley, M., R.S. Chen, U. Deichmann, A.L. Lerner-Lam, M. Arnold with J. Agwe, P. Buys, O. Kjekstad, B. Lyon, and G. Yetman. 2005. Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis. Washington DC: The World Bank.
de Sherbinin, A., and R.S. Chen, eds. 2005. Global Spatial Data and Information User Workshop. Palisades NY: SEDAC/CIESIN. Available at: http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/GSDworkshop.
Lerner-Lam, A., L. Seeber, and R. Chen. 2004. Simple science could have saved thousands (commentary). Los Angeles Times, Thursday, December 30, 2004, p. B11. Also published as “Vital technology as a human right” in the Christian Science Monitor (3 January 2005) and in edited form in The Record (Bergen County NJ, 31 December 2004), Newsday (New York NY, 31 December 2004), The Times Union (Albany NY, 2 January 2005), the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (3 January 2005), the Austin America-Statesman (Austin TX, 3 January 2005), the Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada, 4 January 2005), and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (11 January 2005).
Downs, R.R., and R.S. Chen. 2003. Cooperative design, development, and management of interdisciplinary data to support the global environmental change research community. Science & Technology Libraries 23(4): 5-20. Also published in Online Ecological and Environmental Data, V. Baldwin (ed.), Binghamton NY: Haworth Information Press.
Giri, C., M. Jaiteh, and R.S. Chen. 2002. Remote sensing data for global land cover applications. In Global Environmental Database: Present Situation; Future Directions, Volume 2. R. Tateishi and D. Hastings, Eds. Hong Kong: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. pp. 85-107.