VEDA: An Open, Interoperable Platform for Open Science

Events > VEDA: An Open, Interoperable Platform for Open Science

VEDA: An Open, Interoperable Platform for Open Science

Webinar Speakers:

Brian Freitag, Slesa Adhikari

Affiliation:

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH)

About the Webinar

The Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis platform is a modular open-source platform designed to lower the barrier to entry for engagement with scientific data. The platform is comprised of several components – a visualization and exploration dashboard, backend data and visualization application programming interfaces (APIs), a cloud-optimized data catalog, and a cloud-based analysis platform for analyzing data at scale in-region with the VEDA data catalog and NASA’s official data archives. Data services and data catalog within the VEDA platform are built to community standards and specifications enabling interoperability with other standards-compliant data catalogs. The platform has been the backbone for several high profile initiatives within the U.S. Federal Government including the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center dashboard and the virtual component of the Earth Information Center. The modular design of the VEDA platform enabled rapid deployment of the full VEDA platform for the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center and a web dashboard for the Earth Information Center.

About the Speakers

Dr. Brian Freitag is a Research Scientist at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) with a doctorate in Atmospheric Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Brian joined the Earth Science Branch at NASA MSFC in September 2020 and led the production of NASA’s Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 dataset, a 5-petabyte archive distributed by the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LPDAAC). Currently Brian leads the Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) project. Brian also serves as the deputy lead of the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center data and information system which leverages the VEDA platform for greenhouse gas applications. Throughout his time at NASA Brian has specialized in large-scale data production, data visualization, scientific analysis, and open science to enable the next generation to push scientific research forward.

Slesa Adhikari is a Computer Scientist at NASA IMPACT with a Master’s in Computer Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Joining IMPACT in 2020, Slesa has been actively involved in various cloud-based platform projects such as Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP), Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA), and the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center. These projects are dedicated to making Earth Observation data cloud-friendly and easily accessible. Slesa is a proponent for open science and open-source initiatives, believing strongly in the collaborative and transparent nature they bring to scientific research and technological development.