The 9th Plenary Meeting took place in Barcelona, (Spain), I had the opportunity to assist thanks to the early career program, whose aim is to introduce young researchers and scientists in activities of RDA giving them the opportunity to participate in Working Group and Interest Group activities.

My name is Marco Minghini, I am an Environmental Engineer with a PhD in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). I am currently a Postdoc Research Fellow at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Politecnico di Milano, Italy. I first heard about RDA almost one year ago and I started to become curious about it, wondering if the activities of this organization could be relevant with my own work and research needs/interests.

One year ago I had no clue what RDA is. And if I had known RDA, I would not have imagined to attend one of their Plenaries, because data sharing had rarely been a concern of mine. I am a PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, exploring the application of unmanned aerial systems (UAS or "drones") to study the carbon cycle. A large part of my project was about designing a small and lightweight sensor package and testing it on drones.

By: Jane Wyngaard and Lindsay Barbieri