Environmental Data Science Summit
Growing the environmental data science community
Environmental Data Science (EDS) is a rapidly expanding, interdisciplinary field. As our community grows, there is a need to bring together all types of environmental data scientists to build a foundation for cohesive and effective collaboration.
As part of a National Science Foundation Research Coordination Network grant, NCEAS brought together nearly 400 environmental data science community members over the course of 4 years. Each year a different theme inspired attendees and broadened the network to include discussions around Harnessing Diversity and Inclusion (2023), Communicating & Translating Environmental Data (2024), AI in Conservation Management (2025) and finally Turning Data into Action (2026).
To see a sample agenda from the 2026 Turning Data into Action Summit please visit EDS Summit Website.
To read about the final summit and hear reflections from the summit series, check out this article:
Turning Data into Action: Reflections from the Final NCEAS Environmental Data Science Summit
The Summits
The 2026 Environmental Data Science (EDS) Summit was centered on this question and marked the end of the series. The final summit brought together a diverse and dynamic community of data scientists committed to exploring how environmental data science can drive meaningful, real-world impact for policy, management, and community engagement.
Over three days, participants exchanged ideas, shared lessons learned, and built new collaborations. Many attendees described the summit as a rare opportunity to connect across disciplines, strengthen existing networks, and spark relationships that will extend far beyond the event itself.
Hear more about the final summit and reflections on the series in this article.
The Future of AI in Conservation & Management
What are the opportunities and risks of using AI to inform (or transform) our approach to conservation and management, in particular with respect to new and different tools, the ethics connected with using AI, and future applications and innovations?
For a peak into the goings on at our 2025 meeting, check out our scenes from the 2025 Summit.
2025 Steering Committee
Ben Halpern | Elizabeth Wolkovich | Noam Ross | Amanda Whitmire | Susan Shingledecker | Dawn Wright | Dorris Scott
Best practices for effective and inclusive communication
What tools and strategies can our community use in the next five years to improve our communication and translation of environmental data to broad and diverse audiences?
The 2024 EDS Summit was centered around the above question, providing participants time and space to explore our current practices in communicating and translating environmental data. This included the technical side of data communication, such as innovations in tools for data visualization, and also the pedagogy, such as best practices in strategic science communication and synergies with journalism and storytelling. We were gratified to see this year's theme build on the 2023 EDS Summit, recognizing that equity and justice are potentially powerful outcomes of improving our communication around environmental data science problems, processes, and solutions.
For more of a peek into the 2024 Summit, you can read our feature article and browse the agenda.
2024 Steering Committee:
Ben Halpern | Elizabeth Wolkovich | Noam Ross | Amanda Whitmire | Susan Shingledecker | Dawn Wright | Dorris Scott | Leah Wasser
Identifying small steps to make big shifts
How might we, as a research and engagement community, work together to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in environmental data science over the next five years?
The 2023 EDS Summit was organized around the question above, challenging individuals and groups to think deeply about barriers and identify concrete steps that could be taken on short time scales to create meaningful changes. These reflections relied on deep collaboration among diverse members of the environmental data science community: from graduate students to research center directors, communicators to postdocs, librarians to industry scientists - all perspectives are critical in advancing the field. By the end of the two-day conference, the 100 participants coalesced on ten ideas, forming focus groups that are still actively working on achieving their desired outcomes.
Still curious? Read one participant's take on the summit and view scenes from the 2023 Summit.
2023 Steering Committee:
Ben Halpern | Elizabeth Wolkovich | Noam Ross | Wendy Guan | Amanda Whitmire | Susan Shingledecker | Dawn Wright | Dorris Scott | Leah Wasser
Outcomes
As part of the “un-conference” format, participants self-selected into teams and then worked on small projects over the course of the workshop. Some groups produced outputs within the 2.5 days, some kept working and evolved their ideas. Below are some products that were produced over the course of the four year initiative.
2023
RY, Chapman M, Emery N, et al. Opening a conversation on responsible environmental data science in the age of large language models. Environmental Data Science. 2024;3:e14. DOI
Fong CR, Galaz García C, Abbasi E, Gubbins N, Jouzi Z. Broadening participation in environmental data science: Insights from practitioners. Environmental Data Science. 2024;3:e15. DOI
Alexa L. Fredston, Julia S. Stewart Lowndes. 2024. Welcoming More Participation in Open Data Science for the Oceans. Annual Review Marine Science. 16:537-549. DOI
2024
Keller, A.G., Kimball-Rhines, C.*, Leng, D.*, McIntosh, T.L.*, Nelson, K.S. Tension between opportunities and risks of deep learning in social-ecological systems research. (In review). Ecology and Society.
2025
King, R., Loughnan, D., Mensah, J.N., O’Hara, C., Surasinghe, T., Tajudeen, T., Austin, M. The promise of artificial intelligence to automate detection and mitigation of errors in large biodiversity datasets. (in prep) Ecology Letters.
Makhlouf, B., S. Leiker, A. Mikkelsen, N. Levy, N. Zimmerman, A. Holder. Situating AI in environmental science: perspectives across sectors and career stages. (in prep)
2023
Santa Barbara Charter, a document with guiding principles and commitments for creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive community participating in environmental data science.
Code for using LLM to assist science, e.g. tweaking matplotlib plots for publication by chatting with LLM rather than looking up a bunch of StackOverflow
Developing a Shiny app to show examples of relationalities formed by Indigenous peoples with invasive plants (or in Indigenous science, "displaced plant relatives")
Formation of a new ‘operational ethics’ cluster within ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners) that is focused on issues of equity and inclusion across the broad ESIP community (see https://wiki.esipfed.org/Operational_ethics).
New collaboration between the PIs on a CyberTraining NSF grant (awards 2118302, 2118305) and the group implementing an open online textbook Ecology for All. As they describe, this work will likely be in progress for the next 1-2 years as they continue to develop the data4ecology.org platform.
2025
Torres, R.D., D. Scott and S. Simkin. In prep. Using AI with care: a guidebook for STEM undergraduates.
Infographic of the environmental impacts of AI
Collaborative art piece “AI makes me feel”
What struck me most, both in the two days we shared together and beyond, was how empowering it was to come together as a community.
EDS Summit in the News
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Scenes from the 2026 (and final) EDS Summit
Learn more about the 2026 Environmental Data Summit: Turning Data into Action and hear some reflections as the EDS summit series comes to a close.
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Scenes from the 2025 Environmental Data Science Summit
Check out photos and descriptions of the 2025 EDS Summit, focusing on "The Future of AI in Conservation & Management".
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EDS Summit 2024 nourishes and inspires the environmental data science community
Researchers explore strategies to improve public understanding of environmental data with an eye on environmental justice.
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Scenes from the 2023 Environmental Data Science Summit
Browse photos and descriptions of the 2023 EDS Summit, "Harnessing Diversity in Environmental Data Science".
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