The EPO Standing Committee met on March 12-13, 2019 at the Courtyard Marriott Denver Airport. The attendees for part or all of the meeting included: Kathy Ellins (Chair), Vince Cronin, Debi Kilb, Alex Nikulin, Eric Riggs, Mike Thorne, Bob Wegner, John Taber, Donna Charlevoix. Remote attendees: Wendy Bohon, Tammy Bravo, Perle Dorr, Danielle Sumy, Michael Hubenthal, Mladen Dordevic, Maite Agopian, Maggie Benoit, Zhigang Peng.
The meeting began with a review of the minutes and action items from the previous meeting, followed by a presentation and discussion on EPO program highlights over the past six months and the staff priorities for the next 6 months. The IRIS/SSA Distinguished Lecturer nominations for 2020 were presented and approved by the Committee for submission to the IRIS and SSA Boards for approval, and there was a discussion of the future of the lectureship. This was followed by a presentation on a new anti-harassment curriculum developed for the IRIS REU orientation, and a discussion of how to promote its use more widely. Then IRIS’s educational role in ShakeAlert was described, including the role of the Quake Catcher Network. This was followed by a presentation on the expanding science communication activities of IRIS, which are often in collaboration with UNAVCO.
After lunch, there was a status report on the October SAGE/GAGE workshop planning, along with a discussion of potential EPO pre-workshops and Special Interest Groups. This was followed by discussion of several items related to NSF SAGE II implementation, including the recently submitted joint IRIS/UNAVCO EWO implementation plan, EPO metrics, the draft NSF SAGE website, and NSF SAGE and IRIS branding. Then the committee was briefed on the status of the CORES panel activities and submissions. This was followed by a phone discussion with Maggie Benoit, the NSF SAGE program manager at NSF. The next topic was an update on the status the Mars InSight mission and IRIS’s role in providing data access and resources for the public, via an outreach award from JPL. This was followed by a discussion of the DigitSeis project and the next steps to implementing the citizen science component of the project. Then there was an update on the final activities planned for the EarthScope national office, and discussion of the potential for creating EarthScope legacy documents. The day finished with an introduction to the draft NSF SAGE II, Year 2 budget.
The 2ndday did not begin with the usual executive session because hazardous weather conditions resulted in some committee members needing to leave early and others needing to revise travel plans. Instead, the meeting began with a discussion of NSF SAGE II budget options, and the approval of the draft budget by the committee. This was followed by a marketing and branding discussion, including how to best implement NSF’s new branding recommendations. This was followed by a discussion of potential joint IRIS/UNAVCO funding opportunities and potential IRIS EPO/UNAVCO ECE committee interactions. The meeting concluded with the creation of a list of cross-program issues and information items for the Board that the EPOSC desired to be brought to the upcoming CoCom meeting.
