Federal mandates are requiring curation and sharing of scientific data from NASA funded research. To support this new polices, NASA is now requiring that NASA-funded researchers receiving grants for…

NASA has awarded a $1,221,545 cooperative agreement to The Seti Institute to support data management activities aligned with the agency's open data policies. The three-year award will fund Dr. Barbara Lafuente's work as a data scientist and database specialist supporting the Astrobiology Habitable Environment Database, the ChemCam database from the Mars Science Laboratory mission, and databases developed through the Center for Life Detection. Lafuente will leverage her experience designing astrobiology and mineralogy databases, including contributing to the development of the Open Data Repository platform and the RRUFF mineral spectral database during her PhD and postdoctoral research. This award advances NASA's requirements for NASA-funded researchers to include data management plans in grant proposals and makes scientific data more accessible to the broader community.

Federal mandates are requiring curation and sharing of scientific data from NASA funded research. To support this new polices, NASA is now requiring that NASA-funded researchers receiving grants for research need to include data management plans as part of their NASA funding proposals. Encouraging open data sharing and providing public access to scientific discoveries is intended to increase visibility for NASA funded research, which accelerate the dissemination of new discoveries to advance scientific knowledge and increase science returns for NASA investments. The ARC s exobiology branch (SSX) at NASA ames has made access to research data a high priority, leading several projects oriented to make scientific data more discoverable and accessible to the community. This proposal is to support DR. Barbara lafuente s work as a data scientist and database specialist in SSX activities: the astrobiology habitable environment database (sera, PI thomas bristow), the chemin database (MSL, PI thomas bristow) and the center for life detection (PI s tori hoehler, lindsay hays, and andrew pohorille). The performance period for this proposal begins october 31ST, 2018 and ends OCT. 30TH, 2021. Roles and funding for DR. Lafuente during this period are described below. DR. Lafuente gained extensive experience in mineralogy and astrobiology database design during her PHD research at the university of arizona (DR. Robert downs, advisor). DR. Downs is the director of the mineralogy lab at uofa, where the open data repository (ODR) software was developed together with nate stone of stone umbrella and NASA ames. In 2004, DR. Downs created the rruff database (http://rruff.info) an open-access database of high-quality spectral data from well-characterized minerals. During her PHD research, lafuente actively contributed to rruff by performing mineralogical analyses and by characterizing, the crystal-chemistry of diverse minerals through x-RAY diffraction (XRD), raman spectroscopy and electron microprobe analysis. In 2015 she published the first manuscript describing the rruff database [1]. During her recent postdoc at NASA/ames research center as a NASA astrobiology institute NPP fellow, she continued to lead and direct the development of ahed and the ODR platform.