NEON Satellite Site Award: Training Plan

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Since 2008, the Science and Engineering Alliance (SEA) has been assisting NEON, Inc. with inclusion of minority serving institutions in the planning of the National Ecological Observatory (NEON) science and education. The SEA-NEON, Inc. partnership has helped broaden the awareness and increase the capacity of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) to conduct and participate in NEON ecological, engineering, cyberinfrastructural, and social science research and development (R&D) opportunities. Through workshops, institutional outreach, and coordination activities; SEA has been a leader in conveying the opportunities NEON provides. This award will continue the ongoing partnership to increase the capacity of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) to conduct and participate in NEON ecological, engineering, cyberinfrastructural, and social science research. Currently this demographic lacks experienced individuals with the detailed knowledge in NEON infrastructure, construction, deployment, and operation of NEON resources. For the past four years SEA has worked closely with NEON, Inc. in developing a series of documents known as the Satellite Site Framework. These documents provide a detailed overview of the NEON infrastructure capabilities that would allow institutions to build research capabilities similar to NEON sites. This phase of the SEA-NEON partnership will focus on transfer of NEON, Inc.'s knowledge and technical designs through intensive training of two individuals that will serve as resources for implementation of site based infrastructure and NEON research by MSIs and HBCUs. As such, NEON, Inc. is using the ?train the trainer? model for enabling research capabilities within this research community.NEON is a complex Observatory that will consist of geographically distributed field and lab infrastructure networked via cybertechnology into an integrated research platform for regional to continental scale ecological research. Cutting-edge sensor networks, instrumentation, experimental infrastructure, natural history archive facilities, and remote sensing will be linked via the internet to computational, analytical, and modeling capabilities to create NEON's integrated infrastructure. As a continent-wide research instrument, NEON will support a large and diverse group of organizations and individuals; foremost are the scientists, educators, and engineers who will use NEON infrastructure in their research and educational programs. Building enhanced accessibility for all institutions will broaden the impact of NEON science and education to the next generation of scientists and educators. For this inclusive vision of NEON to be realized requires active engagement and partnerships with underserved communities to ensure awareness of NEON's research opportunities, education and training in NEON scientific and technical capabilities, and technology transfer in key infrastructure areas.