PSInet: data science for climate change research
PSInet is an NSF-funded Research Coordination Network to harness the power of plant water potential (Ψ) and address scientific questions about climate change impacts on earth systems. Prof. Jessica Guo (Hixon/Biology) is seeking 1-2 student data scientists ($17/hr) for the 2024-2025 school year. Hired students will be full members of the PEPPER (Plant & Ecosystem Physiology, Potential and Environmental Research) Lab, with access to research mentorship and opportunities for conference travel.
Prof. Guo seeks curious and collaborative data scientists interested in building a reproducible code base that can deliver human-generated data as a harmonized database. Tasks include:
- Understand and shepherd data submissions through the existing cyberinfrastructure (R and Google Drive)
- Infer causes of failed tests and propose logical fixes
- Track communication via email, Slack, and GitHub project board
- Build database and add to existing documentation
- Design and test a Shiny app and R package
Essay prompt: Please complete this form in lieu of using the URO platform
Plant water potential is a critical driver of water flow and carbon uptake. Though theoretically and practically important, water potential data are difficult to come by due to labor-intensive measurements. PSInet will build the first database of plant water potential in order to spur synthetic research only possible with aggregated and harmonized data, including comparison with coupled climate-vegetation models and validation of remote sensing products. Student data scientists can elect to continue in the PEPPER lab and contribute to PSInet manuscripts.