CEDA staff data curation takes off (literally!)

Posted on March 18, 2016  (Last modified on October 19, 2023) • 3 min read • 443 words

Two CEDA staff joined the FAAM aircraft team on Wednesday 16th March 2016, as it took to the skies over East Anglia for the WINTEX campaign. Poppy Townsend and Kate Winfield were there as part of CEDA’s engagement with the research community: Poppy beginning a 3 month detachment with FAAM as part of her grad scheme at CEDA; and Kate to get first hand experience of data producers and the underlying science of our core community.

 

Poppy says “Within CEDA, I usually see the end part of a project’s lifecycle, whereas at FAAM I’ll see the beginning. This placement is a great opportunity for me to gain a greater understanding of how different instrumentation is used to collect atmospheric measurements. My work at FAAM will increase our awareness of the needs of the wider atmospheric community thus helping to increase collaboration between FAAM and CEDA. Participating on the flight was a truly unique experience and hopefully I’ll get another one over the next 3 months!”

 

For Kate the experience is a real highlight as part of her Year in Industry placement helping her to gain an in depth understanding of atmospheric science.

 “It was an amazing experience to be able to engage with data providers and see where key data for CEDA comes from. It was also a great opportunity to see how the instrument scientists operate instruments and to see how the scientists are able to plot graphs to check the data before it is processed and delivered to CEDA. It was also impressive to see theories learnt in lectures being put into practise and seeing the results.  I have learnt a lot in just a small amount of time and it is an experience I will never forget.”

  Kate’s data curation placement with CEDA covers all aspects of the data life cycle, from a major overhaul of CEDA’s data catalogue records, data ingestion and developing user friendly support materials. This ensures the reliable curation and long term preservation of environmental data, such as FAAM data.

Poppy’s placement at FAAM focuses on facilitating post-flight validation and quality control to improve the flow of core FAAM data to CEDA. She’ll be presenting about this at the RMetSoc student conference in July.

 

Kate will be returning back to Coventry University for her final year of her BSc Geography degree, where she will be sharing her experiences with staff and students.

Opportunities like this play a key role in shaping our Data Scientists of the future and CEDA’s engagement with our core communities!