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From EPSCoR PhD to Co-PI, Jordan Jenckes embraces team science & accessible data

Cherissa Dukelow

 

The fall semester is underway, and Jordan Jenckes is busy on campus teaching Intro to Computer Science at UAA as a new faculty member in the UAA computer science and engineering department.

 

Meanwhile, he takes on the role of co-principal investigator (co-PI) on the ��ɫӰ�� EPSCoR Interface of Change project.

 

The ��ɫӰ�� EPSCoR program sculpted Jordan Jenckes’ academic career. He began his PhD spring 2019 at UAA, joining the hydrogeochemistry lab of Lee Ann Munk and the ��ɫӰ�� EPSCoR Fire & Ice project. He then continued with Munk’s lab and ��ɫӰ�� EPSCoR as a post-doctoral researcher on the Interface of Change project, building on six previous years of stream data from monitoring sites established around Kachemak Bay.

 

As a co-PI on the Interface of Change project, he’ll have the added responsibility of acting as a spokesperson for the project and providing high level guidance toward reaching project objectives as a unified team. 

 

With a foundation supported by EPSCoR, Jenckes’ experience in scientific research was collaborative right from the start, Jenckes said.

 

“I feel very lucky to have that,” he said, both of having early access to a collaborative research environment, and for the opportunity to shift his association with chemistry and geology to computer science and engineering. The new department allows him to make new connections and bring more focus to his expertise in data science and programming.

 

 

Prior to his PhD, Jordan worked for Axiom Data Science, who provide data management services for ��ɫӰ�� EPSCoR. With Axiom, Jenckes curated and funneled large amounts of data for various clients into publicly accessible systems. He contributed to the development of data software products and interactive web map applications, including the , , and , all of which can be found on the AOOS Ocean Data Explorer. This role fostered in him an appreciation for making data available in a way that people can easily interpret and use.

 

“Oftentimes data is left in a format that can't be used easily instead of being transformed into something people can see, interpret and act on,” Jenckes said. “Good visualizations do more than display data; they put it in context, reveal connections, and make uncertainty visible.”

 

Jenckes takes inspiration for good date visualizations from other published manuscripts, “,” and .

 

 

Jenckes will be leading the creation of data dashboards for the Interface of Change project, which will be key in sharing research findings as the project progresses.

 

Jenckes envisions the creation of digital data dashboards for the project that not only visualize data and map the project, but also include an interpretation of the data – a “what does it actually mean?” explanation that ties it all together into something meaningful for people.

 

“We should be aiming to do more with our research than to just inform or produce datasets,” Jenckes said, “To help people use data to make a difference.”

 

Jenckes has some preliminary graphical web data visualizations in the works using his team’s stream data. But, creating a platform that can steward an automatically updating dataset is a challenge.

 

 

With the massive amount of data Jenckes and his team acquire from continuous data loggers installed in gages and wells at their stream sites, sorting, cleaning up, and formally publishing it to a data portal is too laborious to happen immediately.

 

Now that Jenckes is part of the UAA Computer Science and Engineering department, he’s hoping to involve computer science undergraduate students in the development of data visualization tools for Interface of Change.

 

The new department also puts Jenckes’ in a new office down the hall from fellow UAA Computer Science and Engineering professor and now former Interface of Change co-PI Frank Witmer. The proximity has facilitated a close working relationship between them over the last year, collaborating on Interface of Change research and helping to smooth the leadership transition.

 

“I have enjoyed my time as Co-PI and am excited to see Jordan jump into the role,” Witmer said.  “He has a great vision for what needs to be done to accomplish all of the project goals.”

 

This week, Jenckes and the stream team are gathering their fall quarterly round of stream sampling and measurements and conducting an electrical resistivity tomography, or ERT, survey, which provides a visualization of freshwater and saltwater interactions belowground at the mouth of the Woznesenski River over the course of a tidal cycle.