A conversation with Ian Brosnan from NASA and Colin Williams from the USGS. This is the first episode of a mini-series about NASA and USGS collaboration. To hear more from Ian Brosnan, listen to his previous NASA in Silicon Valley episode, Ian Brosnan Talks About How NASA Collaborates and Shares Data with Other Agencies.

Transcript

Abby Tabor (Host 1):Hey everyone! Welcome to NASA in Silicon Valley, episode 78!

Today we’re starting an interesting series of episodes about collaboration between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, the USGS. That’s a collaboration that’s going to grow even more, because the USGS center here in Silicon Valley, in Menlo Park, is set to relocate and become our close neighbors here at NASA Ames. In this episode, we learned more about what that move is going to make possible in terms of research, and why the scientists are so excited for their future work together.

Our guests are Ian Brosnan, who’s the special assistant for new NASA and USGS science initiatives, and Colin Williams, the center director at the USGS campus in Menlo Park.

They told us about how the two federal agencies can do more powerful work, working together. We have very complementary expertise: NASA collects a lot of data about the Earth from above, using satellites and aircraft, and USGS is really strong in related lab and field work.

One example, which will be the topic of next week’s episode, actually, is about a NASA/USGS collaboration for tracking wildlife!

So, just before we get into this episode: don’t forget to check out some of the other NASA podcasts, like Houston, We Have a Podcast and Gravity Assist.

And as always, you can send us your questions and comments on social media. We’re @NASAAmes and we use the hashtag #NASASiliconValley.

So, without further ado, here are Ian Brosnan and Colin Williams!

[Music]

Matthew Buffington (Host 2): We always start it off the same way, trying to get to know people a little bit better. But Ian, you’re like the returning Jeopardy! champion, so we already got to know you.

Ian Brosnan: Right. I got a lot of money from that experience.

Host 2: Nice, nice. You get the Jeopardy! challenge right at the right time. For folks who are listening, in our show notes we’ll add a hyperlink to Ian’s episode so you can go through and listen to that and you get to know Ian and all of how he joined NASA, how he joined the area. But we have Colin from USGS, the U.S. Geological Survey, joining us.

Colin Williams: Hello.

Host 2: Tell us a little bit about yourself, Colin. How did you end up joining USGS? How did you end up in this area?

Colin Williams: I was originally a research geophysicist. I studied temperatures in the Earth and the heat flowing out of the Earth. A great job opportunity came up with the USGS in Menlo Park [California] a number of years ago. I applied and was fortunate enough to get the job. Had a very interesting and exciting research career. Also worked on geothermal energy and assessing the geothermal energy resources of the United States, and then transitioned into my current management role where I’m a Center director of one of the five centers in Menlo Park.

Host 2: Was it like a lifelong dream as a kid? You’re like, “One of these days I’m going to work at USGS.” I’m guessing you grew up always interested in science and stuff?

Colin Williams: I started out as an engineering major and transitioned into the Earth sciences and actually did a lot of computer modeling. Part of the computer modeling was modeling data that people collected in field studies out on the ocean drilling program and in various parts of the United States. I realized at some point that while the computer modeling was interesting and continued to be part of my research, I really wanted to be out in the field collecting data, and the USGS is one of the organizations that really offers that kind of mix. We’re very much about going out into the world and observing things and making measurements.

Host 1: So where did that end up taking you? Where did you go out into the field?

Colin Williams: Mostly in my career I’ve focused in the Western United States, the base of operations being Menlo Park. The Mojave Desert, the Great Basin out in Nevada, up in the Pacific Northwest, occasionally to Alaska and Hawaii, places like that. Every once in a while other parts of the United States or overseas, but mostly out West.

Host 2: I know when you typically think of the U.S. Geological Survey, the first thing that pops into my brain is earthquakes, measuring earthquakes and stuff. I’m imagining in the Bay Area – tends to be earthquake prone. Have you always had a presence in the Bay Area? What’s the history?

Colin Williams: Actually when the USGS was founded back in 1879 –

Host 2: Good year.

Colin Williams: There were four divisions, and one division was based in San Francisco to help study the gold deposits and the mining in the Mother Lode of the Sierras. Not too many years later, the survey management changed its mind and pulled everybody back to Washington, D.C. For most of the rest of the USGS history, operations out elsewhere in the United States were temporary. People would be officially based in Washington, D.C., and travel to Alaska or California or Texas or wherever they were doing their fieldwork. Maybe set up a temporary office for a period of months or a few years, but always come back to Washington, D.C.

That changed with World War II. The USGS became very involved in looking for mineral resources, addressing other Earth science issues that came up in the context of the war effort, spread itself all across the landscape. USGS management decided after the war to establish major regional centers. And in the 1950s, they arranged to establish a center for the west in Menlo Park and brought people together who’d been everywhere from Southern California, Carson City, Nevada, the old Mint Building in San Francisco, elsewhere, and created a major regional center in the Menlo Park campus.

Host 2: And so for you and Ian, how did you guys end up meeting?

Host 1:What’s the connection?

Host 2: Yeah, what’s the connection?

Host 1:Why is the U.S. Geological Survey even on this podcast today?

Host 2: Smooth transition.

Ian Brosnan: Yeah. We can blame John Stock for this one.

Colin Williams: Yeah.

Ian Brosnan:I guess if I understand correctly, for a number of years there’s been an idea that Menlo Park’s campus might be moved out of Menlo Park at some point, and then NASA would be a good landing point. So when I came here a little over three years ago, I think the idea was really starting to catch hold. And so Steve Hipskind, who was then a director of Earth science, asked me to look into that and help with an interagency, inter-center team, to see how that might be done. And then Colin had a similar role on the USGS side. So I think we probably met on the 2004 team and have been working together ever since both on logistics and also on the opportunities to pull the science together.

Host 1:Right, because when you say NASA seemed like a logical place, it’s not just proximity and the geography of it all. Right? I assume there’s scientific logic there, too. Right? Do you want to tell us about that?

Colin Williams: Absolutely. I think the scientific collaboration potential and the history of scientific collaboration, which I think you’ll be covering in some of the podcasts that are coming out in the near future, was originally the connection was how we can in a period of time in which federal budget has been and probably will continue to be relatively limited, how can federal agencies collaborate, leverage their resources, do better work, do more powerful work working together. And in particular, how could the USGS and NASA take advantage of their proximity here between Mountain View and Menlo Park and build that collaboration.

At the same time, we were dealing with a lot of facilities issues, facilities costs issues, whether we should stay in Menlo Park or potentially relocate somewhere else. The opportunity to align those scientific interests with solving some of our facilities challenges and moving in with NASA here at Moffett Field was extremely attractive. It’s taken a few years, but we’re on track to move down here and we’re all really looking forward to it.

Ian Brosnan: Colin alluded to the fact earlier that USGS is in the field quite a bit. I think that pairing of our looking at the Earth from the vantage point of space, or from the air if we’re doing airborne science, and USGS’s capabilities as far as ground observations or labatory capabilities, it can be really powerful. I think just recently [our] space science [group] was interested in talking to USGS about some of their methane clathrate work because the development of those gasses trapped in an ice network actually has a lot of relevance to understanding processes off world such as on Pluto. It’s these little surprises that keep popping up as we go through this that makes this incredibly exciting.

Host 2: I guess for folks who are not familiar with the U.S. Geological Survey at all, I think of NASA, in a way, where for the most part we’re all one NASA, but every center has its areas of focus. Obviously you think of the Kennedy [Space] Center where they launch rockets. [NASA’s Johnson Space Center in] Houston, they train astronauts. We have a whole mix of portfolio here. I’m guessing is that kind of the same way at USGS? Do you guys have different buckets that you deal in? And then if so, what are the specialties of this area?

Colin Williams: We certainly have different buckets. Our disciplinary or work buckets are called mission areas in the USGS, and they cover things like natural hazards, energy and mineral resources, land use and climate change, ecosystems, and of course water, topographic studies, for example.

Host 2: So it’s not just earthquakes.

Colin Williams: Absolutely, not earthquakes. In fact, mentioning ecosystems. One of the things that people aren’t typically aware of, especially here because earthquakes are such a prominent part of our life in the Bay Area and what we know about the USGS, is in the mid-’90s we merged with what was then the National Biological Survey. So we actually have a very large component in the USGS related to ecosystem studies. It’ll be a small group, but it will be a part of what we’re planning to move into Moffett Field. Certainly though in the West, we focus on natural hazards: earthquakes and volcanoes. Landslides, those have been in the news lately. Water resources are a big focus.

In my center, there’s work on energy and mineral resources, things from traditional oil and gas studies and traditional mineral deposits to things that people are concerned about with what goes in your smartphone, rare earth elements, things like that, or innovative and renewable energy sources like geothermal energy. There are remote sensing folks who have a history of actually working very closely with NASA. Paleoclimate studies, people who worry about carbon cycling and past records of climate on the Earth.

Host 1:Yeah, interesting. I feel like there are as many surprising things that the Geological Survey does, including biology and ecosystems, as we have here at NASA. People are always surprised that we do space biology and aeronautics and things that are often forgotten.

Colin Williams: Yeah. One of the exciting things about collaborating and moving here is the fact that we’re always discovering new things that NASA as a whole is doing or things that are being done at NASA Ames that we didn’t know about and are fruitful directions of collaboration. Of course, like any organization we’re still finding out things that we do.

Host 1:Have you had any surprising moments in these discussions when you realized, “That’s perfect. The Geological Survey does that and we can use it.”

Ian Brosnan: I think there have been quite a few. Obviously the clathrates one was pretty neat.

Host 1: The methane story? Yeah.

Ian Brosnan:Yeah, exactly. I think another one that –

Host 2:What was that one? Say that again.

Ian Brosnan:These methane clathrates.

Host 2:Methane clathrates just rolls off the tongue. Go on. Do tell more. Pray tell about the clathrates.

Ian Brosnan:Just say it; it’s just soothing: clathrate.

Host 2: It’s like triple word score.

Ian Brosnan: Right? Yeah.

Colin Williams: You could also say methane hydrate if you want.

Host 1: I recognized methane… [crosstalk]

Host 2: Like a commoner.

Ian Brosnan:But no. So that was one that popped up, was a little bit of a surprise to me. I didn’t think that would actually be an obvious connection.

Host 1:Right.

Ian Brosnan:But there are other linked issues. I think the folks that are working on the Kepler/K2 mission are thinking of how to communicate those scientific results. So it’s not just the science, but how to communicate those results.

Host 1: So the exoplanet hunting mission is informing you guys on how to –

Ian Brosnan:They’re taking things from USGS about how USGS communicates complex hazards. Right? That was an interesting, I guess, surprise for them is to see that list of seminars. We had this joint seminar list going out where we can see what’s happening at USGS and they could see what’s happening here. USGS broadcasts most of the seminars live. So it’s actually a fairly simple act for somebody to say, “That looks like an interesting topic,” and just click on a web link at 10:00 on a Thursday and listen to that talk. That particular one was discussing how we communicate complex hazards information, which has some obviously corollaries for how you communicate any complex scientific information to a public audience.

Host 1: Interesting.

Colin Williams: One thing that NASA brings to the table, of course, is a big attraction to us is all the capabilities in engineering and technology, and the interests. We try to stay out of hazardous areas. But of course some of our work, whether it’s related to landslide hazards or more particularly you might consider volcano hazards and active volcanic environments – in some ways they’re not dissimilar to what NASA may be looking at in terms of how you send instruments and make measurements in hostile environments off world. There are all sorts of potential alignments where the NASA technologies that are being developed and tested for those sorts of off-world missions could be applied for our on-world missions for volcano hazards or other applications by USGS.

Host 1: So cool.

Host 2: It might’ve been in our conversation, Ian. I remember talking… I think it was tagging wildlife, where it was like understanding how wildlife patterns and stuff. The connection that I made that I didn’t really get before was like you have these satellites flying around the Earth taking all this data, but it’s a lot of data over a large area of land. But with some of the tagging of animals, understand how wildlife patterns or even like how water flows…

Ian Brosnan: Right.

Host 2:…how salmon – I think it was the salmon reference, too. But that’s little granular points of data. But combining the big data with the little points, you kind of understand the whole a lot better.

Ian Brosnan:Right. Yeah, that was exactly right. Hopefully that’s going to be one of the podcasts that you guys talk about, are the folks that have been developing that. And so, again, as Colin said, that pulls together the technology piece. But how do you develop the tag that communicates effectively to a satellite? How do you develop a sensor that’s light enough and low-power enough to actually operate on a small animal, and then pair that with the satellite data? But then even relatedly, it’s what’s the architecture of that satellite structure to capture that data, not just from normal sense of perspective, but even to get the information back from that animal for data over the middle of the Pacific Ocean or somewhere remotely in the United States.

Host 1:This is really multidisciplinary, right?

Ian Brosnan: It is, hugely.

Host 2: Kind of looking forward for you guys working together, breaking the fourth wall a little bit, this is mid-January or so when we’re recording this – what are you guys looking at your next steps? Is a moving truck showing up over to Colin’s office? Are you going to schlep all your stuff on over? How’s that working out?

Colin Williams: I hope so. The last time I moved on the Menlo Park campus I moved furniture myself, and that wasn’t any fun. Actually, we’re in the process right now of renovating the second floor of building 19, which is in the historic district there at Moffett Field. That will be phase one of our move. When we’re done with the renovation, there will be office space, workstations. We will move about 200 people from Menlo Park into that space as phase one.

Phase two, which will take a few more years, is to renovate other space on campus, additional office space, and most important, laboratory space so we can relocate our laboratories down here. That will involve not only a large number of laboratories, specialized facilities, but about another 250 people.

Host 2: I was going to guess, there’s probably some big toys sitting over there that isn’t exactly easily moved or calibrated.

Colin Williams: Yeah, we’ve got everything from classic biological chemistry labs with fume hoods and sinks and high-precision instruments, to rock mechanics facilities with big hydraulic presses or giant slabs of rock that slide past each other, a paleomagnetics laboratory that has to maintain very low level magnetic fields to study the magnetic properties of rock… a great diversity of things. Ideally, that’s part of what we’re bringing to the table when we come here for a future collaboration.

Ian Brosnan: The Earth science decadal survey was just released a few days ago, right? So I think for me, one of the things I’m most excited about is looking at that and thinking about what the things are that we can do together. I think one of the highlights in that report, speaking back to the earthquakes point, where the scientific community right now is really interested in how do you bring in this observational data where you collect it from space or some other system, experimental data that you might do in a lab, and the physics-based modeling to really understand how these megathrust faults like Cascadia behave, and can we understand the dynamics well enough to do a better job of forecasting a hazard risk for society?

I think between the supercomputing capabilities that we have here, our history in doing physics-based modeling, all the history and experience that USGS is bringing in terms of both ground observations and experiments in the lab, I think we’re going to have a lot to offer the United States and the scientific community going forward.

Host 2: Even thinking of Ames, one of the things that caught me off guard when I first came over here. There’s certain, I guess, core competencies that Ames works on that is applicable to a lot of areas of science like supercomputing or like autonomy.

Ian Brosnan: Right.

Host 2: So I would imagine as we start working closer with USGS and stuff, that there’s areas where, hey, you can play in this field, too. Because supercomputing is great for aeronautics, it’s great for the astrobiologists, it’s great for a whole field so people can take advantage of it, let alone autonomy.

Ian Brosnan: Right. Yeah. No, I think there’s, what, eight core competencies? I think we can probably touch USGS into all eight of those at some level.

Colin Williams: The global reach that NASA brings is extremely valuable as our science objectives and scope evolve. Of course, we’re the United States Geological Survey. Our primary mission and our focus is in the United States and on hazards and resources and ecosystems in the United States. But at the same time, especially with globalization, it’s not just an issue anymore of, say, what happens with an earthquake on the San Andreas Fault or up in the Cascadia subduction zone. If there is a major earthquake in China or Japan, elsewhere in the world that’s got potential to disrupt global trade – we know where all our iPhones are manufactured, for example – being able to extend that global reach is something that I think will benefit tremendously from the work together between the two agencies.

Host 2: Maybe talk a little bit more about just the U.S. government agencies within the scientific community at large. Because I think it’s very easy for people to have this idea of the U.S. government as this big monolith that knows all and sees all, but it’s made up of a bunch of departments and agencies, may or may not talk to each other. From the scientific realm, I’m guessing is that pretty normal? You go to conferences. You’re reading research papers. You’re just walking in the same circles, not just NASA/USGS but other federal agencies.

Colin Williams: Like NOAA.

Host 2: Yeah.

Colin Williams: NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Ian Brosnan: Absolutely.

Host 2: How does that all piece together? How do you typically run into these folks? Because I’m guessing there’s not like a club meeting where you all show up and say, “Where are all the federal scientists, and what are we going to work on?”

Colin Williams: Secret handshake. Sometimes we try to do that. It doesn’t always work very well, but we always keep trying at various levels, whether it’s back in Washington or out in field or regional offices, to build these collaborations. You mentioned NOAA. We have a lot of work with NOAA. We have a lot of work with our partner department of interior bureaus like the Bureau of Land Management or the Park Service. But we also do interact on the scientific level, and that’s also the avenue through which we have a lot of interactions – and I know this is true for NASA – with academic partners.

One of the things that Ames certainly brings to the NASA table, and we believe our Menlo Park and future Moffett Field campus brings to the USGS table, is the opportunity to connect with Silicon Valley, too, and the technology development and innovation that happens here, as well as the academic scientific research environment that we benefit from with universities like Stanford and UC [University of California] Berkeley and UC [University of California] Santa Cruz that are in the area.

Host 1: That makes me think when you speak of innovation and leveraging this area. We spoke about the international impact. So I imagine whatever you can develop to better forecast earthquakes here in this area in the U.S., that can be applied elsewhere, right?

Colin Williams: Absolutely. One of the main areas of development – and I think this is going to be a future podcast – is on earthquake early warning.

Host 1: Cool.

Colin Williams: That’s a technology and the research supporting that technology that’s being developed and implemented around the world. So maintaining collaboration with, say, the Japanese or the Europeans or the folks in New Zealand is very critical to advancing that scientific mission, because, of course, knowledge and innovation happen everywhere.

Colin Williams: We were touching on the question of interagency collaboration. Any of us who’ve worked in the federal government for a significant period of time, we bear the scars of trying to make bureaus, agencies and departments work together effectively. It’s not always easy. One of the best things about this whole process of relocating the USGS Menlo Park campus to Moffett Field here and working with NASA Ames has been the open and enthusiastic perspective and approach that everyone here at Ames has brought to the topic. The people here overall just couldn’t be more welcoming and more enthusiastic about building the scientific collaboration and having us here in what’s your place.

Host 1:Awesome

Host 2: Excellent. So for folks who are listening, if you have questions for either Ian or Colin, we are on all the social media platforms, @NASAAmes. We’re using the hashtag #NASASiliconValley. But also we’ve decided, we’ve gone a bit old school and we have a phone number that you can call. That is 650-604-1400. You can call, leave a message or comment, and then we can go right back to Ian, right back to Colin, and see if they can answer that. Thanks for coming on over.

Ian Brosnan: Thank you.

Colin Williams: Thank you.

[END]