[esip-semantictech] Lewis McGibbney Self-nomination Statement

Mon Sep 30 14:30:05 EDT 2019

Hi nomination@,
I would like to register my 2020 self-nomination with the following statement

In 2019 I was privileged to serve as the ESIP Semantic Technologies Committee Chair. A position which I have enjoyed tremendously. In 2019 [0] I ran with a commitment to execute the following plan

  1.  ensure more overlap with the OGC's active GeoSemanticWeb community. ESIP's activity in the SemTech area should be better communicated to that international audience
  2.  ensure as presence at the U.S. Semantic Technologies Symposium 2019 which will bring together the U.S. Semantic Web community and begin forming a stronger research network
  3.  continue community development and releases of the SWEET Ontology Suite such that we can grow it to the de-facto semantic web and linked data resource for earth and environmental terminology
  4.  establish a SWEET Community Building Workshop; this will offer content from introductory level through to data mash ups, and development activities such as ontology alignment and the addition of documentation for SWEET
  5.  continue to endorse and evangelize the use of COR as a top tier linked data server for the earth science community. A technology publication for this topic demonstrating use cases and uptake would be the initial step
  6.  update the previous work undertaken by Peter Fox et al. on the Semantic Technologies Infusion Roadmap and Hype Cycle. This is a critical component of us ensuring that SemTech Committee remains relevant in todays technology space.
On #1 - It turns out that the OGC GeoSemanticWeb community is not nearly as active as I once thought. In fact, we’ve seen much more activity within ESIP over the last year. This is clear sign that a strong body of experts and evangelists now exists at ESIP. In 2020 We will continue to make progress on community building fronts, touching base specifically with the US2TS community in the United States. I aim to personally advance this agenda through attendance at a few events throughout 2020 and also by inviting new community members to our monthly telecon’s.
On #2 - Several members of the ESIP SemTech committee attended US2TS 2019 [1] which took place on March 11-13, 2019 at Duke University in Durham, NC. Those attendees provided event commentary at the June teleconference. Our 2020 budget has a specific line item in support of continuing this community building effort so there is clear progress and future commitment on this item.
On #3 - In 2019 the SWEET project and community improved leaps and bounds. The contributor base [2] grew, we held our first ESIP Geoscience Community Ontology Engineering Workshop (GCOEW) [3] which we will be repeating at AGU Fall Meeting 2019 in December. Additionally, we witnessed the rollout of a grassroots cluster focused on Semantic Harmonization [4] with its current focus on bringing the SWEET ontology up-to-date while harmonizing it with other commonly used ontologies such as ENVO. Clear propgress has been made on this front and I look forward to contributing towards this again in 2020.
On #4 – As stated in #3… this item has been addressed. We will be running another two of these workshops in 2020. Additionally, I am currently pulling together the outline for a SWEET publication which we will submit to Elsevier’s Computers and Geosciences journal.
On #5 – In 2019 was witnessed the creation of the COR cluster which formalizes the development and community building required for COR to be a successful ESIP investment moving forward. In our 2020 budget we have two lines items for COR showing commitment to the project and the benefits it provides for the wider community. I am commitment to making COR a useful service to the ESIP community and look forward to the challenges this task presents in 2020.
On #6 – In 2020 we are embracing ESIP’s vision statement of Putting Data to Work. We will be doing this through a seminar and blog series together with our industry partner Franz Inc. [5] who are the developers and owners of the AllegroGraph graph database [6] which powers COR. I look forward to making more progress on our roadmap in 2020.

In addition, to achieving the above I was responsible for facilitating the VOTE and formal assignment of Pierre Luigi Buttigieg as SemTech Committee Co-chair. Pier’s leadership and collaborative team spirit has been invaluable so far and it has been great to work with and learn from Pier throughout 2019. I look forward to working with him in 2019.
I would also like to thank Zachary Robbins for his effort and commitment in the ESIP SemTech Fellow position in 2019. I hope this has been a valuable experience for Zach as he progresses through his Ph.D. program. I’ve nominated two candidates for the 2020 position and look forward to working with our next Fellow.

In 2019 I made my best efforts to advance the role of Semantic technologies within ESIP. I tried to so this by getting back to the basics and once again running the Committee as a Technologies Committee first and foremost. I think this methodology is working so I am going to stick at it again for 2020 should I be permitted to return to the Chair capacity.

Thank you
Lewis McGibbney

[0] http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/L_McGibbney_Statement
[1] http://us2ts.org/2019/
[2] https://github.com/ESIPFed/sweet/graphs/contributors
[3] https://sched.co/PtTi
[4] http://wiki.esipfed.org/index.php/SemanticHarmonization
[5] https://franz.com/
[6] https://allegrograph.com/

Dr. Lewis John McGibbney Ph.D., B.Sc.(Hons)
Enterprise Search Technologist
Web and Mobile Application Development Group (172B)
Application, Consulting, Development and Engineering Section (1722)
Info & Engineering Technology Planning and Development Division (1720)
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
California Institute of Technology
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, California 91109-8099
Mail Stop : 600-172A
Tel:  (+1) (818)-393-7402
Cell: (+1) (626)-487-3476
Fax:  (+1) (818)-393-1190
Email: lewis.j.mcgibbney at jpl.nasa.gov<mailto:lewis.j.mcgibbney at jpl.nasa.gov>
ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2185-928X

           [signature_1251207042]

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