Fall 2023 Data Science Seminar Series
Xiaogang Ma–Machine-readable Semantics in Data Science for Geosciences

Speaker: Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Idaho

Faculty Host: Shuang Zhang, OCNG

Abstract: Open data and open science activities are changing the way of how people do research. In the past years, our practice and observation of data science activities in geosciences have shown many gaps in the digital world that hinder a smooth data science workflow. Many of those gaps and challenges are related to machine-readable semantics, such as the terminology, classification system, and structured access to open data. Recently, through an NSF EarthCube project (#2126315), we have made significant progress on the semantic enrichment of the Mindat database, a popular data source in the field of mineralogy and other geoscience disciplines. This presentation will introduce the survey and technical developments we have done so far to address the semantic challenges, the features of the open data products from Mindat, and a few use cases that have applied the Mindat open data. A virtuous open science ecosystem needs necessary building blocks of data, software, and computing facilities, but more importantly, it needs the participation of scientists with complementary expertise to collaborate on the scientific discovery. We welcome more people to use the Mindat open data and share their data science products and feedback.

Biography: Xiaogang (Marshall) Ma is an associate professor of Computer Science and the Dean’s Distinguished Fellow at the University of Idaho. He received a Ph.D. of Earth Systems Science and Geoscience from University of Twente, Netherlands in 2011, and then completed his postdoctoral training of Data Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. His research focuses on deploying data science in the Semantic Web to support cross-disciplinary collaboration and scientific discovery, with broad interests in complex systems in Earth and environmental sciences, data interoperability and provenance, and visualized exploratory analysis of Big and Small Data. He is active in international societies of data science and geoinformatics, including ACM SIGWEB, CODATA, ESIP, RDA, GSA, AGU and IAMG. Ma received the Science of Team Science (SciTS) Meritorious Contribution Award in 2018, the IAMG A.B. Vistelius Research Award in 2015, and the inaugural ICSU-WDS Data Stewardship Award in 2014.

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For more information about TAMIDS Seminar Series, please contact Ms. Jennifer South at jsouth@tamu.edu