SEN at CSDMS 2018 Annual Meeting

SEN will be organizing a clinic titled "Wrangling your Research Data" at the upcoming annual meeting of CSDMS (Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System) on May 22-24, 2018 at CU Boulder. As we did for the past two years, we will provide an introduction on how to use the SEN-KB (knowledge base) resource and the associated SEAD (Sustainable Data Actionable Environment) data sharing platform. We will be working together to contribute new entries to SEN-KB and to evaluate the usefulness of existing entries. At the CSDMS SEN-KB clinic, we will also briefly discuss ideas for the future of data sharing in the sedimentary research community. If you are interested in attending the CSDMS annual meeting and our clinic, we have funding to support a limit number of attendees. Please email us at sedimentexp@gmail.com for more information.

New Research Using SEN Data

A new article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface investigates island formation on deltas.  The article titled "Island Formation Resulting from Radially Symmetric Flow Expansion" authored by John Shaw,  Kimberly Miller, and Brandon McElroy, utilizes new experimental data as well as data published on the SEN Knowledge Base.  More information about the research and its results can be found on John Shaw's Blog:

https://medium.com/@john.burnham.shaw/a-recipe-for-island-creation-b5ed321c045

Experimentalist of the Month: Hajime Naruse

Experimentalist of the Month: 

Hajime Naruse

Kyoto University 

1. How did you first get involved with SEN?

I participated in the first SEN meeting and since then I have been
involved with SEN.

2. What different types of experiments have you worked with?

I have worked with experiments of self-accelerating turbidity
currents, bedforms formed by turbidity currents in Fr-supercritical
condition, grain-fabric formation using rice grains, and inception
process of submarine channel-levee system.

3. What is a favorite memory of yours in the lab?

In 2007, I was working on a self-accelerating turbidity current
experiment with Octavio Sequeiros at the University of Illinois. We
were very excited about the results and continued until 2 AM on the
last day I stayed at UIUC. After that, we resumed the experiment from
3 o'clock in the morning and I left the United States at 5 o'clock in
the morning. In other words, I had an hour to clean up the apartment.

4. What do you hope SEN will help the experimental community to achieve?

I expect SEN to be a portal that makes it easy to refer experimental
data and methodologies as much as possible. I think that SEN's
important mission is to facilitate communications between researchers.
Also, I would be happy if we could share the way to obtain
experimental materials which may be difficult to find, such as special
types of plastic particles.

SEN CSDMS Travel Grant Contest

The Sediment Experimentalist Network (SEN) is sponsoring a data-utilization contest for graduate-student and early-career geoscience modelers who feel passionate about advancing science through experimental data sharing and reuse. The top five winners of the data-utilization contest will have all travel and registration costs paid for their participation at the 2018 joint CSDMS (Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System) - SEN annual meeting in Boulder, CO, on May 22-24, 2018.

The Sediment Experimentalist Network (SEN) is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) EarthCube program as a Research Coordination Network (RCN). SEN integrates the efforts of sediment experimentalists to build a knowledge base for data collection and management. The network facilitates cross-institutional collaborative experiments and communicates with the research community about data and metadata guidelines for sediment-based experiments. This effort aims to improve the efficiency and transparency of sedimentary research for field geologists and modelers as well as experimentalists. More information is available here: http://earthcube.org/group/sen

The purpose of this contest is to advance utilization of the SEN Knowledge Base (www.sedexp.net) as a tool for collaboration between modelers and experimentalists toward achieving science goals.  In particular, how can sediment experimental data be utilized to inform, test, and refine models and predictions for earth surface processes and geohazards?  This will be a major goal of this year’s joint CSDMS-SEN annual meeting on “Geoprocesses, geohazards.”

Applicants will be judged primarily on the basis of a brief (1 page max) proposal describing how items in the SEN Knowledge Base can help to answer a science question of interest.  We particularly encourage contest entrants to try to track down data and existing experimental facilities and their capabilities listed on the SEN Knowledge Base.  If data can be found, we encourage descriptions of preliminary analyses in the proposal.  If data cannot be found or are difficult to use, please explain the problems you encountered and ways these problems might be addressed in future development of the SEN Knowledge Base.  If data do not exist but potential experimental collaborators can be found, please describe a collaborative project that can be coordinated through SEN. (Please note that we will be highlighting the proposals of successful applications during the CSDMS / SEN meeting.)

Eligibility

This contest is open to current graduate students and early career scientists (within 5 years of graduating) who are interested in advancing science through data sharing and reuse.

Requirements

1. If you have not already, sign up for the SEN Newsletter: Monthly SEN News
2. If you have not already, create a Knowledge Base account at www.sedexp.net
3. Start browsing entries containing experimental data, set-ups, methods, and equipment relevant to your science question.
4. Think of an earth-surface science and/or geohazard question to be answered using experimental data and/or new collaborations with experimentalists and prepare your proposal as described above.
5. Prepare an abstract for the SEN / CSDMS that mentions your proposed data utilization idea, and include this in your presentation at the meeting.  The data utilization idea does not need to be a central feature of your CSDMS presentation, but it should be included.
6. Write a brief (one paragraph) professional biography.
7. Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2018.  When registering for the CSDMS meeting, be sure to check the box to indicate that you are applying for the SEN / CSDMS travel grant.  Then, send your application materials (proposal, professional biography) to sedimentexp@gmail.com by March 15, 2018.

Selection of Winners

Winners will be selected on the following criteria:

1. Originality of proposal.
2. Depth of engagement with the SEN Knowledge Base.
3. Applicability of proposal to planned presentation at CSDMS.
4. Feasibility of proposal and qualifications of applicant toward proposed idea.

Winners will be notified via email and will be given instructions on the funding process. Names of winners will also be featured in the SEN Newsletter. Winners should acknowledge funding from NSF SEN when presenting their work at the CSDMS meeting.

Timeline

~Feb 22nd: Contest opens

Deadline Extended! March 29: Deadline for CSDMS abstract submission, registration, and SEN travel grant application

April 1st: Notification of winners

May 22-24: CSDMS meeting (Boulder, Colorado)

Questions? Please contact SEN at sedimentexp@gmail.com.