GEO Citizen Science Webinar

Uta Wehn – Dr. Uta Wehn is Associate Professor of Water Innovation Studies and acting Chair of the Knowledge & Capacity Development group at IHE Delft. She is a social scientist from the field of science, technology & innovation studies, with a background in ICTs, drawing on more than 20 years of combined industrial, research and international development experience. Her work at the intersection of data and knowledge co-creation, digital innovations and water and environment focuses on the social dynamics of innovation and how to harness digital transformations for participatory environmental governance and sustainable development.  She leads the acquisition and implementation of large interdisciplinary research and capacity development projects. Her current Citizen Science projects include case studies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, using LivingLabs principles and tailoring user-centred and multi-stakeholder co-design methods to Citizen Science. She has extensive experience with teaching, MSc and PhD supervision and the facilitation of multi-stakeholder interactions in a range of thematic settings and cultural contexts.  She has over 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals, international conference proceedings and book chapters in the areas of citizen science, citizen observatories and environmental monitoring; participatory environmental governance; stakeholder engagement; co-design methods; business modelling; capacity development and knowledge management; data and knowledge sharing; social innovation and water innovation dynamics. She is a member of several high level international initiatives, incl. the OECD Water Governance Initiative where she has represented IHE Delft since the start of the initiative in 2013. She co-chairs the GEO CITSCI Community Activity of the Group on Earth Observation and the CSGP Community of Practice on Citizen Science & Open Science, and she is a member of the Board of Directors of the European Citizen Science Association.

Lea Shanley –  Trained as a geospatial data scientist and policy expert, Dr. Shanley’s research has focused on improving government services and empowering communities through open and participatory innovation, new technologies and social media. Previously, she was a  Presidential Innovation Fellow at NASA, and founding director of the Commons Lab of the Science and Technology Innovation Program at the Wilson Center. She is one of the chief organizers and co-founders of the Federal Community of Practice on Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science, a groundbreaking effort to enable federal agencies to engage the public in collective problem solving. In 2009, Lea was an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow in the U.S. Senate, crafting legislation on satellite Earth observations, oceans, and hazards. Lea also helped launch the new Citizen Science Association and Wisconsin Geographic Information Coordination Council. She conducted her PhD research in Environmental Monitoring at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and holds an MS in astronomy and BS in physics.