Introducing an exciting data science opportunity: NEON Ecological Forecast Challenge by the EFI-RCN

Michael Dietze, Hariri Institute Steering Committee Member and Associate Professor, Earth & Environment is involved with the Ecological Forecasting Initiative’s Research Coordination Network (EFI-RCN) that will be launching the inaugural NEON Ecological Forecast Challenge. This challenge is open to any individual or team that is interested in Data Science. This challenge encourages participants to make predictions for ecological data being collected by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). The forecasting challenge is similar to a data science challenge or model-intercomparison project except that this is a true forecast – the validation data hasn’t been collected yet at the time predictions are made. The primary goals of the challenge are to improve the predictive capacity for these five research areas, all of which have both scientific and societal value, to advance the discipline of ecological forecasting, and to build a sense of community.

There are five themes in the challenge that span a broad range of terrestrial and aquatic systems across the United States, details of which can be found on the challenge webpage.

Forecasts may be submitted after the start date for each theme and the evaluations will occur throughout the year. Individuals or team contacts can register to submit forecasts here and registration includes categories for different career stages. 

If you have an interest and/or questions about this opportunity, please connect with Michael Dietze at dietze@bu.edu.