NEON Ambassador Program

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The NEON Ambassador Program empowers and connects a cohort of early-career researchers and educators eager to augment NEON’s engagement with a breadth of scientific communities of practice. The program is designed to help Ambassadors use NEON data and resources to increase participation of the scientific community, accelerate scientific or technological discovery, translate knowledge into innovative applications and effective public policy, and enhance educational and workforce development opportunities.

 

Who are the NEON Ambassadors?

MEET THE NEW 2026-2028 NEON AMBASSADOR COHORT

NEON Ambassadors include early-career professionals who are:

  • Linked by a passion to understand and address environmental challenges that affect society.
  • Excited about NEON data and resources and their potential to advance scientific discovery, scientific education, and STEM workforce development.
  • Eager to expand the NEON user community.
  • Open-minded and innovative, with a drive to collaborate with and foster the NEON community to help realize NEON’s full potential.
     

What does being an “Ambassador” involve?

The NEON Ambassador Program is designed to be a two-year program with an anticipated time commitment averaging about 3-5 hours a month, plus travel up to once a year, to participate in program activities.

Year one (October 2026-September 2027) is dedicated to learning more about NEON and training/professional development. NEON Ambassadors will participate in monthly asynchronous training sessions and virtual discussion-focused meet-ups. Illustrative topics to be covered include: 

  • NEON data, samples, and infrastructure: tools and resources, best practices, and science support.
  • Team Science. Collaborative and interdisciplinary research approaches to solve multi-faceted and complex scientific problems facing society. Explore how team dynamics, such as team composition, leadership styles, communication mechanisms, and decision-making determine group innovation and productivity.
  • Facilitation 101. Facilitation basics include how to build an interactive agenda, icebreakers, facilitation tips and tricks, and more. This course will set the Ambassadors up to create engaging and successful Capstone events.
  • Preparation for the Ambassadors’ Capstone activities, to be held in year two. 

The second year (October 2027-September 2028) is dedicated to planning and implementing a Capstone event, where each Ambassador will develop and lead an interactive event with a scientific community of practice of their choice. Through the Capstone event, Ambassadors will focus on broadening awareness and use of NEON data, samples, and/or educational resources and provide guidance and training on the application of selected resources. Capstone events may be workshops, hackathons, short courses, new curriculum or coursework, or other activities agreed on with NEON staff that incorporate NEON data, samples, or other resources. Events may be hosted at the Ambassador’s home institution, at another organization, at a conference, or other venue agreed on with NEON staff.

Additionally, throughout the program, Ambassadors will be paired with a NEON mentor and work towards meeting career goals identified in the Ambassador’s Individual Development Plan. Mentors will also provide advice in the preparation for the Capstone event. 

Please note that due to the highly interactive and participatory nature of the program, attendance at all programming is expected. 
 

Why be a Champion for NEON?

The National Ecological Observatory Network…

  • Is strategically poised to provide the long-term, open data and research infrastructure needed to address complex issues of our time; NEON data are relevant to  food, water and energy production systems that are impacted by human activity and ecosystem change.
  • Is a platform upon which educational resources can be developed and shared to foster data science in the classroom – from fundamental data analysis to AI, NEON data offer opportunities to build data skills capacity and train the next generation STEM workforce.
  • Is of interest to all sectors, private, public, and governmental, that increasingly need empirical and actionable data to plan for, manage, and react to extremes in the moment of change.
     

Benefits for Ambassadors

NEON Ambassadors can benefit from...

  • A trusted network of like-minded peers: meet, interact with, and learn from people across a multitude of disciplines and expertise, promoting research, education, scientific outreach, and translational science.
  • Direct access to NEON: forge working relationships and points of contact with NEON staff and resources.
  • Dedicated community platform: A Slack channel dedicated to the program providing access to fellow Ambassadors, NEON staff, and support.
  • Dedicated community toolkit: a one-stop-shop to navigate all Ambassador trainings, resources, and tools that will evolve with the needs of the cohort.
  • Exposure to “Big Science:” Experience large-scale science operations and resulting data streams through unique opportunities. This exposure highlights both the challenges and opportunities of the evolving NEON program and a continental scale network. 
  • Access to resources for catalyzing wider community engagement: Take part in and lead activities that expose NEON to a wider set of communities and partners; catalyze new ideas to empower more people to use NEON data, samples, and other resources (e.g., development of new tools).
  • Amplified professional profiles: build recognition within the Ambassador community and beyond through NEON seminars, partnerships, web pages, and social media.