Q&A: Meet ISR’s first Science Community Manager 

Earlier this year, the ISR launched a Beta version of a free, digital hub for the 4,000+ scientists in the ISR network. The ISR Community builds on the learnings from our first readiness exercise in 2022, a test case around wildfires, where we asked scientists to submit proposals for how they would manage a cross-border wildfire crisis and consider what tools and resources they would need.   

In the wildfire test readiness exercise and throughout our ongoing conversations, ISR members were clear about the need for interdisciplinary, cross-geographic collaboration, and for easier and faster ways to engage in preparedness. We heard you. That’s why we built the ISR Community and have been working closely with Beta testers to ensure it is effective across disciplines and regions. A full, network-wide launch is expected in Fall 2023.  

Recently, we sat down with Jadson Jall, the ISR’s first Science Community Manager to learn more about the digital hub’s progress. Jall is a geneticist from Brazil and has a passion for bringing scientists together to unlock the power of scientific collaboration as a key to solving humanity’s greatest challenges.  

Why do you think the global science community needs a network like the ISR now? 

The global science community needs a network like the ISR because we live in a world with many compounding crises, such as pandemics and climate-related disasters. These crises are huge, affecting people and the environment in different countries and regions, and they are complex. That means they need lots of different kinds of responses and resources. So, one country’s scientific capabilities, or a single national science policy, can’t begin to resolve crises at that scale. An open, global network of scientists, such as the ISR, means individuals and institutions can pool resources and solve problems together, leading to faster and more effective responses to crises. Furthermore, the network’s principles, such as bringing together Scientists Without Borders and ensuring fair resource access, promoting collaboration, and including different voices, make it a much-needed platform for the current global scientific community. 

What would you like the ISR’s digital hub to look like a year from now, and how would scientists be using it?  

In my dream world, a year from now, the International Science Reserve (ISR) hub would be a globally recognized and effectively functioning platform facilitating seamless personal connections and collaboration among scientists worldwide. It would have grown beyond its current network, and its resources would be even more diverse and plentiful. Scientists would use the hub to conduct and participate in readiness exercises and explore crisis scenarios, helping them prepare for various kinds and aspects of disasters and emergencies. The hub would also be a place where scientists would know where to go and how to apply to connect to different scientific and technical resources in different situations. Ideally, the hub would have a track record of successful crisis response efforts. That will demonstrate its effectiveness and reinforce its value, most importantly, by having a positive impact. 

Can you share more about how you see early adopters using the online community, and their feedback? What do they want to see more of?  

Active community pioneers – our earliest testers – engaged in discussions on diverse topics, from climate change crisis simulations to challenges in research collaboration. Our testers from varied locations and research backgrounds provided invaluable feedback, helping us to consistently refine our virtual environment to better foster scientific engagement and collaboration. For example, they helped us figure out which formats could work for the ISR’s Readiness Exercises and helped us try out various types of activities and collaborations. During the current Beta phase of the ISR Community, we continue to learn from our early adopters. It is clear that our community is eager to collaborate across borders, and I am doing my best as Community Manager to facilitate these connections and collaborations. 

Why did the ISR choose to use “serious games” as an approach to crisis readiness? And how will the readiness exercises work in the ISR Community? 

The ISR chose to use serious games as part of crisis readiness because it’s a fun way to learn about and improve the decision-making process, so that participants can feel they are undertaking the process themselves. Role-playing puts the participant in the position of learning about the crisis in real time and actively experiencing the dilemmas and decisions of how to respond, rather than learning about it afterward. These scenario-based simulation exercises allow researchers and decision-makers to practice analyzing available, often limited, information and making the best decisions, as quickly as possible.  

Serious games will help members of the ISR Community explore decision making around issue areas such as water resource management, climate change adaptation, weather disasters, public health crises, and urban planning. These games serve as a hands-on and immersive way to understand the complexities and nuances of various crises and try different strategies for dealing with them. 

The ISR’s serious games will be conducted online, in a collaborative, interactive format. These exercises will simulate various real-world crisis scenarios, and participants will devise and implement strategies to manage these crises. The activities are being designed to help participants better understand how resources will be deployed and managed in future crises and explore related decisions, helping to prepare us for scientific work in times of global crisis. 

What kinds of resources are available to researchers in the ISR Community? 

 The ISR Community offers a rich suite of resources to its community of researchers and other stakeholders. They can be organized around two main areas. The first of these consists of specialized scientific resources such as high-performance computing, remote sensing, geospatial-temporal mapping, and databases. The ISR partners with organizations like IBM, UL Solutions, Google, Pfizer, and the National Science Foundation, offering various technical tools, data, and other resources. During a declared crisis, researchers will be able to log on to the ISR Community to gain access to resources like IBM’s Geospatial Discovery Network. 

The other key resource of the ISR Community is our global network of over 4,000 scientists who have come together around a common goal. The ISR Community provides a space for this growing network to prepare, learn, collaborate, and be ready for crises. We will be offering different types of preparedness activities to help facilitate some of the community’s collaborations, and we are also planning special features for the fall based on the interests of the community. 

One last question: why should your fellow scientists join you on the ISR Community?  

I recommend that my fellow scientists join me in the ISR Community for a multitude of reasons, including: 

• Joining is completely free, and you will receive global exposure and appreciation for your contributions to crisis resolution. Being part of the ISR is a unique opportunity to apply your research in a real-world context, contributing to tangible crisis solutions. 
• As a member of the ISR Community, you will be part of a borderless network of experts, allowing for valuable collaborations and exchanges of ideas. It’s also an excellent space for professional development, offering opportunities for knowledge sharing, networking, and building community connections. 
•  Being part of the ISR Community ensures that you stay in the loop, with critical crisis communication updates.  

So, the ISR Community is not only an opportunity to contribute to global crisis resolution but also a chance to grow professionally and expand our scientific horizons. 

Using data to protect food systems from climate impacts

The world has enough food to feed everyone, yet the World Food Programme estimates that 345 million people around the world remain acutely food insecure in 2023.  

Potentially further escalating this inequity, climate shocks are increasing the risks to agricultural yields. Heavy rainfall, droughts, and heatwaves can cause crop failures; climate and environmental pressures can decimate insect populations and microorganisms vital to plants and soil or let new crop pests or diseases emerge. Combined with a globalized distribution system and geopolitics, food system disasters are a compound problem.  

To plan for or reduce the impact of these catastrophes, a variety of datasets, modeling, and analytical tools will be key, including observational data, remote sensing, geospatial mapping, and satellite imagery.  

The International Science Reserve convened an expert panel from nonprofit and corporate perspectives across disciplinary and geographic boundaries to talk about the role of data in preparing for and responding to potential food system crises, as part of the International Science Reserve’s webinar series, Science Unusual: R&D for Global Crisis Response. Participants were: 

• Michael Hinge, Senior Economist, ALLFED (Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters) 
• Levente Klein, Research Staff Member, IBM 
• Kyriacos M. Koupparis, Head, Hunger Monitoring Unit, United Nations World Food Programme 
• Kay Sun, Senior Scientist, Mondelez International 
• Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar, Climate and Environmental Journalist, panel moderator 

Here are the top takeaways from the discussion: 

Participants agreed about the urgent priority to get accurate data about what’s happening with food systems, weather, and climate patterns: 

The information needs to include a wide range of data inputs to make sure it includes the “ground-truthing” from sources where people are seeing the most immediate impacts.  

And in turn that the information, modeling and predictions should be made available to the communities who are most affected.

The panelists talked about climate impacts on specific food crop examples and ways that data-based planning can help deal with those impacts with alternative food sources or adapting agricultural cultivation methods.   

Visit our events page to watch the full webinar.  

When waters rise: Cross-border science for global flood response

Around the world, flooding is wreaking havoc on people’s daily lives with increasing magnitude and frequency. Communities in Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Cameroon are experiencing some of the worst floods in a decade, as they sweep across western and central African borders.  

In Pakistan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and the United States—such as in Florida and Kentucky—communities have faced multiple dangerous and deadly floods in 2022. These unprecedented flood events have killed thousands of people, displaced millions, decimated farms and businesses, and destroyed homes and habitats. 

The World Bank reports that about one and a half billion people are at risk from flooding, one-third of whom are living in poverty, making them more vulnerable to migration pressures and economic insecurity. While flooding can be a natural phenomenon that can help provide fertile soil and sustain wetlands, today’s floods are becoming more frequent, dangerous, and deadly, as a result of human-caused climate disruption and development in urban, coastal areas.  

When flood water crosses national borders, “transboundary floods” can be even more catastrophic without international cooperation around emergency management, such as early warning systems. In a recent Science Unusual webinar, hosted by the International Science Reserve, a group of panelists explored the role scientific and technical experts can play in large-scale, international flood prediction, prevention, preparation and response. 

Speaking on the panel were:  

• Nora El-Gohary, Professor of Construction Engineering and Management, The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois 
• Njoki Mwarumba, Assistant Professor of Emergency Management and Disaster, University of Nebraska Omaha 
• Anthony Torres, Chief Meteorologist and Head of Global Science Operations, Currently weather service  
• Campbell Watson, Senior Research Scientist – IBM Research, Global Lead, Accelerated Discovery—Climate & Sustainability 
• Ugochi Anyaka-Oluigbo, Environment and Conservation Journalist, Nigeria (Moderator) 

Here are three big takeaways from the discussion: 

1. Breaking down borders between social scientists and other types of scientists who study floods will lead to better outcomes for people and communities.  

2. Using atmospheric data to predict flooding impacts is just the beginning. Protecting the most vulnerable requires a stronger analysis on how the atmosphere interacts with oceanic and local land systems, and human habitats.   

3. Scientists should work to understand indigenous knowledge in order to better collaborate on early warning systems that save lives. 

4. Artificial intelligence is enhancing our ability to predict and prepare for floods. But we must simplify access to increasingly complex data processes and improve their usage across borders. 

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Do you want to watch the whole webinar? Here are three steps to rewatch the panel through the ISR Science Unusual series on-demand:    

• Register for the webinar using this link   
• Then, click “Join Event”   
• After logging in, select the “Schedule” menu, or the grid menu (small squares) on mobile, located at the top of your screen, then click “On Demand” 

In step with the UN on science for sustainable development

For a United Nations discussion of the role of science in solving the world’s most urgent problems, the International Science Reserve (ISR) convened a panel of experts from the ISR network, across academic, private and public sectors. The recording is now available on-demand (viewing instructions below).

The panel was moderated by Mila Rosenthal, Executive Director of the International Science Reserve, and included:  

• Nicholas Dirks, President & CEO, New York Academy of Sciences, ISR Executive Board Co-chair 
• Erwin Gianchandani, Assistant Director for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships National Science Foundation, Federal Liaison to the ISR 
• Tracy Marshall, University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus. Trinidad and Tobago, ISR Science Community Member 
• Philip Nelson, Director, AI for Social Good, Google AI, ISR Executive Board Member 

The webinar was part of the United Nations General Assembly’s Science Summit, where we discussed how the ISR can help in fast-moving climate and health-related crises to protect progress on the UN Sustainable Development Goals – the Global Goals – and limit the damage to communities and habitats.

When a crisis hits, the International Science Reserve will help scientists in our network get additional access to specialized human and technical resources, like remote sensing, geospatial mapping and high-performance computing, so that they can apply their research for crisis response.

Here are two big takeaways from the discussion:

1. Human networks are key, and they need to include everyone to make sure that science and technology is aimed at helping the most vulnerable people and most fragile environments.

2. You can’t just throw money at a crisis and expect rapid response solutions.  You have to learn from previous experiences and prepare in advance. 

For example, the ISR is keeping the life-saving public-private connections made during COVID-19 alive in order to prepare for the next crisis. 

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Do you want to watch the whole webinar? Here are three steps to rewatch the panel through the ISR Science Unusual series on-demand:   

• Register for the webinar using this link  
• Then, click “Join Event”  
• After logging in, select the “Schedule” menu, or the grid menu (small squares) on mobile, located at the top of your screen, then click “On Demand” 

Scientists hunt for clues to post-wildfire recovery in Argentina  

In August, wildfires ripped through the Córdoba Province in central Argentina, leaving economic damage and a scorched forests and pasture land in its wake. Argentina is no stranger to wildfires, but climate change is making the fires more frequent, widespread and complex – and the impacts of drought and fires are stretching across borders.  

After thousands of acres in northern Argentina burned in February of 2022, ash clouds flew into Argentina’s neighbor, Paraguay, harming local residents’ health with smog-filled air. The country made international headlines just two years prior when another set of fires in Córdoba burned 60,000 hectares of flora, fauna, grassland, forests, and homes.  

Healthy farmland and soil are critical to the region, given that it relies heavily on its agricultural industry, like cattle farming. Crisis after crisis has forced the region’s leading scientists to rethink how fire-driven changes to soil properties implicates vegetation, plant regeneration and ecosystem services. And it has pushed them to work together across borders and scientific disciplines.  

“In late September 2020, it was easy to see from the Córdoba City the thick black plumes of smoke rising from the ranges, while hellish images were shown on TV and social media,” said Dr. Maria Gabriela Garcia, International Science Reserve community member and a geologist based in Córdoba. “This situation led me to wonder to what extent the fires have altered the chemical and physical properties of the soils, and ultimately, impacted their fertility and runoff control capacity.” 
 
After the 2020 fires, Argentina’s National Council of Science and Technology (CONICET) called researchers together from different disciplines to propose actions and lines of research that deal with different aspects of this crisis. Today, geologists, mineralogists, chemists, microbiologists and ecologists, are all working all together to rapidly characterize the dynamics of post-fire recovery.  

One unique collective of Argentinian scientists are on the hunt for stronger data about the soil in the aftermath of extreme wildfires. Through the NCST, Dr. Estela Cecilia Mlewski, a microbiologist, met Dr. Garcia, a professor at the National University of Córdoba. 

The team also brought on Edith Filippini, a lichenologist focused on ecological studies and biomonitoring of environments affected by fire; Romina Cecilia Torres – a specialist in postfire regeneration by resprouting and seedlings; and Daihana Argibay – a specialist in satellite image analysis. 

The group’s collected data will be fundamental to understanding the geochemical and microbiological disturbances that occur in soils of a semi-arid mountainous area of southern South America affected by forest fires, and help researchers design effective strategies for remediation of the affected ecosystems across the region. If their research can find the presence of microorganisms, for example, there is an opportunity for regrowth and regeneration of local flora – which could lessen the fires’ impact on farming or other ecological or economic activities. 

The group recently worked together on the International Science Reserve’s readiness exercise on wildfires. The ISR conducts readiness exercises – or scenarios – to bring scientists from across borders and disciplines together to prepare for crisis. The Argentinian scientists believe that the International Science Reserve can be useful for giving researchers the tools for fire prevention and support through much needed resources to predict fire behavior, and help in control and monitoring tasks against a crisis.  

“The ISR is an excellent opportunity to know researchers around the world working on similar aspects to us. It gives us the potential to generate collaborations between foreign groups and enrich our knowledge. The ISR’s readiness exercises can improve existing tools and more importantly, expand our ideas,” Dr. Mlewski recently told the ISR team in an interview. 

If you are interested in joining the International Science Reserve network and collaborating with scientists like the Argentinian group, please visit our sign-up page to learn more about becoming a member of the ISR community. 

How to address our climate communications crisis with Dr. Sweta Chakraborty

From the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change, it’s no longer a question whether effective science communication is necessary to deal with crisis and avert further disaster. The way the scientific community communicates urgent messages can make or break how the public responds to a crisis. Ineffective communications result in inertia or skepticism – and have reduced our collective ability to respond to and reduce the impacts of crisis.  

Dr. Sweta Chakraborty understood the importance of strategic communications early in her career as a scientist, long before many researchers began to reckon with the ways disinformation and misinformation are weaponized across the globe to prevent action on crises such as climate change.  

Today, Dr. Chakraborty’s work is motivated by the need for clear, credible, science communication to urgently and proactively manage the risks that threaten human security and well-being.  She is currently the US President of Operations at We Don’t Have Time, and a globally recognized risk and behavioral scientist. She is a trusted authority on proactive preparedness to mitigate against the impacts of climate change.  

Dr. Chakraborty is an advisor to the International Science Reserve and strengthens the ISR with lessons she has gained from advising scientists, policymakers, and other experts on science communications.  

Dr. Chakraborty recommends that scientists who care about responding to the multitude of crises our world faces must strengthen their ability to effectively communicate.  Experts who are clear and pitch their messages for the audiences they need to reach will ultimately have stronger results. And we will all be better off for it.  

Q&A: Why this fire researcher values collaboration across scientific disciplines  

Wildfires are getting worse, but in every country, the response is still too slow. What are the major obstacles to fixing this problem?  

Wildland urban interface fires or wildland fires that spread into communities are incredibly complex and destructive events. Our collective response to them is an interdisciplinary problem, requiring many different stakeholder groups to work together. The policies, codes, standards, research, response, enforcement and public action have not kept up with the growth of the hazard. We need to make significant progress in all these areas and more to keep pace with the scale of the danger. 

Approximately 86% of the scientists involved in the ISR to date reported that they would like to work on wildfires even if it is not their primary area of research. What does this type of multidisciplinary research look like in practice? 

I think the interesting part about studying fires is that it is inherently multidisciplinary and applied. For example, we can take my chemistry or forestry skills and apply them to a fire problem. At FSRI, we like to have a direct issue that we’re trying to resolve, and we like to work with stakeholders that can tell us exactly what the problem is that needs to be solved.

We’ve got chemists, fire protection engineers, mechanical engineers, data scientists, and nuclear engineers all working together to address fire problems through multidisciplinary, applied research. For example, we have applied fire science and engineering to improve the safety and effectiveness of the fire service by conducting experiments with them to understand better the science behind their strategies and tactics.

What lessons could scientists in our network learn from UL Research Institutes?  

It always starts with studying the problem alongside the stakeholders. Our key stakeholders at FSRI include the fire service, academia, fire investigators, fire safety engineers, government, industry and the general public. We strongly believe in using the words “with” versus “for.” While we study fire safety every day, we must be humble and understand what scientific knowledge, perspective and experience we do not have as researchers. With that understanding, you can build your team and partnerships to more effectively conduct the research or respond to the challenge.   

What did you learn from the first set of wildfire readiness exercises?  

At first, I wasn’t sure how the scientists and their proposals would all fit together or collaborate, which is the heart of the ISR network and mission. But then I had to recalibrate and say, well, we’re testing and trying out a new system. I loved the international component and that scientists from all over the world were submitting their perspectives on how to solve a problem through a variety of methods. 

How could the ISR push that collaborative model further in a time of crisis?  

The state of research on wildfires is young, and many aspects of science are needed to tackle the wildland fire problem, including research areas like climate science, meteorology, data science and emergency management. There are many contributors to the research, including federal agencies like NASA, the Department of Agriculture and Interior. They are all pumping billions of dollars into dealing with wildfires.  

At the same time, it’s a very fragmented group. In many cases, you have fire departments protecting communities and homes, and the fire service protecting trees. And there is a lot of confusion in the middle. That’s where we have a tremendous opportunity to better collaborate across disciplines and agencies.  

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In June 2022, the International Science Reserve released a report on our initial research and development of a model to mobilize researchers around the world and to match them with scientific, technical, and human resources to magnify their impact. The report highlights the results from the first readiness exercise on wildfires we conducted with the support of experts like Steve Kerber. Download the full report here