BDEI 3 - Participant Details: Molly O'Neill

Name:

Molly O'Neill

Affiliation:

 

Bio

Molly O'Neill is the State Director of the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (Exchange Network). Her position is housed at the Enviromental Council of the States (ECOS) - the non-partisan, non-profit association of state enviromental commissioners. The Exchange Network is the new internet and standards based method for exchanging environmental information between partners. She is intimately involved in the development of all technical and guidance documents of the Exchange Network, provides primary support to the 50 State enviromental departments, and brokers and mediates issues between States and EPA related to the Exchange Network. Prior to taking on her current role (2 years ago), she worked as a consultant for 14 years supporting States, EPA, and private industry in enviromental management issues.

Work:

The work on the Exchange Network is revolutionizing the way enviromental data is exchanged between partners, particularly between States and EPA. Early success has demonstrated that a distributed model for data access can work better (more data partners) than the current methods of trying to feed large federal databases. This demonstration may lead to policy changes in the future. It also provides a real time access to data to address both data gaps and indicators.

We have data flows and data stardards in place, but not ontologies which is why I would like to participate in that break out session. The area of ontologies is a key focus in moving forward with a catalogue of available data on this network.

Recommended URLs:

www.exchangenetwork.net

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, U.S Geological Survey National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) and NASA.

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