TEAM

Our multidisciplinary ESS-DIVE team includes computer/data scientists, earth scientists, and digital librarians.

LEADERSHIP

	Charuleka Varadharajan, cvaradharajan@lbl.gov *ESS-DIVE PI, Staff Scientist* Charu is a computational Earth scientist at LBNL’s Earth and Environmental sciences area, with expertise in with expertise in machine learning, data science and data management for water resources and other environmental applications. As the lead PI for ESS-DIVE, she is responsible for overall project management and oversight and chief product owner for ESS-DIVE feature development. She is also the PI of a DOE ESS Early Career project (iNAIADS), and a research focus area/data management lead of the DOE ESS-funded Watershed Function SFA, which are both focused on investigating the impacts of disturbances on watersheds. She leads LBNL’s Earth AI and data program, is a PI at the International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and is a research affiliate with the Berkeley Institute of Data Sciences.
	Shreyas Cholia, scholia@lbl.gov ESS-DIVE PI Shreyas is Group Leader for Integrated Data Systems Group in LBNL’s Computational Sciences Area, focused on the engineering and integration aspects of computational and data analysis systems. He is particularly interested in the interactive aspects of scientific computing at scale. As a co-PI for ESS-DIVE, he is responsible for overall project management and oversight, and is the chief technology lead for the software infrastructure. He has extensive experience leading teams and building data systems for scientific projects, such as ESS-DIVE, The National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC), Wildland Fire Science Initiative (WFSI) and the Materials Project. He also worked for over a decade at the NERSC supercomputing center, where he led the science gateway and grid computing efforts.
	Val Hendrix, vchendrix@lbl.gov *Technical Lead, Chief Engineer* Valerie is the chief engineer and technical lead overseeing the management of the ESS-DIVE infrastructure and software services. As the engineering lead, she is responsible for all technical aspects of the ESS-DIVE project. She leads the team of engineers and oversees all phases of maintenance, from planning to execution, and is responsible for the implementation of new features and software lifecycle best practices to enhance operational capabilities. Valerie has a Master’s in Computer Science and 23+ years software engineering experience. She has demonstrated experience with DevOps, scientific workflows, satellite data processing and has been a technical lead for several earth and environmental sciences projects with an emphasis on collecting, storing and synthesizing environmental datasets (BASIN-3D, NGEE-Tropics, Wildland Fire Science Initiative).
	Karen Whitenack, kwhitenack@lbl.gov *Project Administrator* Karen serves as the key administrative contact for the ESS-DIVE project. Karen has extensive experience providing high-level project management support to collaborative teams including assistance with budgets, reporting, coordinating team meetings, program reviews and communication. Ms. Whitenack holds a BA in Social Ecology from UC Irvine.

TEAM

	Joshua Robert Boverhof, jrboverhof@lbl.gov *Computer Systems Engineer* Joshua Robert Boverhof is a Computer Systems Engineer IV in the Scientific Data Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where he has worked since 2000 supporting advanced computing and data-intensive science. He specializes in distributed systems, high-performance computing (HPC), and scientific data infrastructure, with experience in cloud platforms, systems programming, and scalable web services. His technical background includes Python, C/C++, Java, Linux, and AWS. Boverhof has contributed to DOE and Berkeley Lab projects spanning science gateways, RESTful HPC services, data center monitoring and telemetry, and cybersecurity research, including software integrity and fuzz testing. His work focuses on building reliable, scalable platforms for large-scale scientific computing and data analysis.
	Madison Burrus, mburrus@lbl.gov *Computer Systems Engineer* Madison is a computer systems engineer at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. She supports ESS-DIVE metadata publication, data pipeline workflows, and feature development. As the lead support staff, she handles support inquiries and troubleshooting. Additionally, she leads data management and publication for the Watershed Function SFA. Madison holds a B.S. in Environmental Science from Stony Brook University.
	Harry Caufield, jhc@lbl.gov Staff Data Scientist Harry joined LBNL in August 2021 and has been working on ESS-DIVE since December 2024. His background is in biological data mining, focusing on text mining and natural language processing. He actively works on applying ontologies, data standards, knowledge graphs, and emerging artificial intelligence approaches to improve the accessibility and interoperability of biological and environmental data.
	Danielle Christianson, DSChristianson@lbl.gov Computer Science Engineer Danielle works with primarily earth science researchers to co-create data management tools and workflows to support their research. Her role in the Scientific Data Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory combines UX research, full stack design and development, and operations. Her background spans various disciplines: mechanical engineering, ecology, new media, data science.
	Matthew Henderson, mhenderson@lbl.gov Computer Systems Engineer Matt is an experienced Computer Systems Engineer who builds solutions for scientific research teams, not limited to but including front-end, back-end, search, HPC, and Jupyter. He is joining the ESS-DIVE team in 2024 to lead the DevOps effort.
	Fianna O’Brien, flobrien@lbl.gov Computer Systems Engineer Fianna is a computer systems engineer focusing on data publication and data lifecycle workflows for ESS-DIVE. She has experience managing publication data and creating data driven outreach tools for large-scale ESS projects. She holds a B.A. in Computational Linguistics from Hampshire College.
	Dylan O’Ryan, dporyan@lbl.gov *Environmental Data Research Associate* Dylan is a research associate at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. As a member of ESS-DIVE’s Data Management Support and Services Team, Dylan leads the dataset publication review process and the adoption and development of ESS-DIVE reporting formats. He is also a member of the Watershed Function SFA Data Management and Integration Team, where he focuses on field-data integration. Dylan holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies from Sacramento State and is currently an M.S. student in the Environmental Geosciences program at CSU East Bay.

PARTNERS @NCEAS

The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at UC Santa Barbara is partnering on implementation of the data preservation component, including providing replication to NCEAS and other DataONE nodes. NCEAS is a DataONE member and a recognized expert in ecological data, digital libraries, and standards for data format.

PARTNERS @NERSC

The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) will be the primary data center for ESS-DIVE.

PARTNERS @OSTI

The DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is partnering on providing DOIs and metadata enhancement for data packages.

ARCHIVE PARTNERSHIP BOARD

The ESS-DIVE Archive Partnership board is a representative body of current DOE Environmental System Science projects. Its members consist of the principal investigators of major ESS projects/programs, and some ESS-funded university projects. The board provides requirements and feedback to inform the development of ESS-DIVE features and provide direction to its data management support and services activities.