Deana Pennington, Research Assistant Professor

Methods and models of cross-disciplinary collaboration, science & technology; information flow in knowledge ecosystems eScience, Informatics & cyberinfrastructure projects Integrated analysis of field, GIS, sensor, and image data Phone: 505 277 2595 Email: dpennington@lternet.edu

Deana is Research Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico. She is an interdisciplinary scientist with a PhD in Physical Geography and Geotechniques, a Masters in Geology, and post-PhD coursework in Adult and Group Learning. Her research is in eScience, natural science informatics, and geospatial approaches to study of climate change impacts on natural systems. These research efforts are usually conducted by collaborative teams that include researchers from multiple disciplines. Few theories are available to inform management of these interdisciplinary research efforts. Hence, recently her research has focused on understanding collaboration processes as knowledge ecosystems; interdisciplinary teams as distributed cognitive systems; use of spatial metaphors for analysis of shared conceptual spaces; and development of models of cross-disciplinary learning and collaboration. She is interested in the application of collaboration and semantic technologies that enable interdisciplinary research. Deana is PI on the National Science Foundation funded Cyberinfrastruture Team Project: Advancing Cyberinfrastructure-Based Science through Education, Training, and Mentoring of Science Communities.