The EPO Standing Committee met virtually on October 3,7 and 14, 2022. The attendees for part or all of the meeting included: Committee Members: Mike Brudzinski (chair), Tadesse Alemu, Wesley Brown, Jascha Polet, German Prieto, Dayanthie Weeraratne
IRIS Board of Directors liaison: Jackie Caplan-Auerbach
IRIS staff: John Taber, Perle Dorr, Tammy Bravo, Michael Hubenthal, Danielle Sumy, Justin Sweet and Mladen Dordevic, Bob Woodward
UNAVCO staff: Donna Charlevoix
The meeting, which was held as three separate sessions over 3 days, began with a review of the minutes and action items from the previous meeting, followed by an overview of the Board guidance to the Standing Committees. This was followed by an overview and then discussion of the NSF IRIS EPO/UNAVCO ECE panel review held the previous week. The slides presented to the panel were provided to the EPOSC in lieu of the usual EPO past 6 months program highlights presentation and discussion. Then there was an update on merger planning, including a discussion of the new EarthScope governance structure, and plans for the November Board meeting and community reception. This was followed by a presentation and discussion regarding the end of year funding provided by NSF to Instrumentation Services and Data Services. There were then a few EPO program highlights presented by EPO staff, and then the first session concluded with a review of the EPO program’s progress against the 5-year NSF SAGE II plan.
The 2nd session began with a brief update on NSF SAGE II Y4 spending compared to the Y4 budget and the planned spending under the Y5 budget. Then there was a discussion of potential plans and budgets for Y6 and Y7. This included a presentation of proposed EPO program priorities, a review of Y6 and Y7 ideas from the Spring EPOSC meeting, and plans for REU program in Y6 and Y7. Then the EPO evaluation strategy was discussed, including the self-publishing of EPO evaluation reports on the EPO evaluations web page, and the outcomes from the recently completed overview evaluation of individual activity evaluations. Then the results of recent dissemination efforts were discussed, along with a discussion of branding needs. The 2nd session concluded with a discussion focusing on key directions and priorities for EPO/EarthScope Engagement.
The 3rd and final session began with a continuation of the key directions and priorities discussion. Then key EPO accomplishments, justifications, objectives and concerns of EPO program were discussed, as requested by the Board. This was followed by a consideration by the EPOSC of the Educational Affiliate membership application submitted by Fort Valley State University. Then there was a short Executive Session, followed by Committee recommendations for representatives from the EPOSC to serve on the new EarthScope Engagement Advisory Committee. There was then a discussion of concerns to be brought to the attention of the IRIS and EarthScope Boards. The final discussion of the meeting involved determining if there were any additional EPO-related items to be brought forward as cross-program issues for the CoCom meeting and/or decisional items for the Board.
