Dr. Manil Maskey

I am a Senior Research Scientist and Project Manager at NASA, with a passion for data science, artificial intelligence, and Earth science. I hold a B.S. degree in Computer Science and Mathematics, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, where my research focused on high dimensional data visualization, computer vision, and machine learning.

With over 24+ years of professional experience, my career has been diverse and exciting. I started as a Software Engineer at the National Cash Registry/Teradata, working on data mining solutions for customer relationship management. Later, I spent 12 years as a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), developing innovative machine learning solutions to tackle challenging problems in Earth science.

My journey led me to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), where I played a key role in modernizing data center systems and transitioning to the commercial cloud environment. As the manager of one of the NASA's Distributed Active Archive Centers—Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center, I was responsible for its research and operations. Simultaneously, I helped establish a data science team within the IMPACT project, which focuses on advanced artificial intelligence tools and applications for Earth science and other domains.

Over the years, I have managed competitive programs for NASA's Earth Science Data Systems program, including leading the Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth System Science (ACCESS) solicitation and established the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (CSDA) program’s data management project at MSFC.

In 2019, I began a NASA Headquarters detail that led me to support the Science Mission Directorate's (SMD). I started with the Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) program, where I managed the Advancing Collaborative Connections for Earth System Science (ACCESS) program and developed the AI strategy. Later, as the Data Science and Innovation Lead for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer (OCSDO), I had the honor of leading SMD's AI initiative in close collaboration with all NASA science divisions, where I engaged in numerous activities to raise leadership awareness of AI's potential for science and brought the science community to address challenges in adopting AI for science, including developing best practices and principles for ethical AI in scientific research. Additionally, I represent NASA in two major activities organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): serving as a steering committee member of the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) and Co-chair of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program's Big Data (BD) Interagency Working Group (IWG).

Recently, I led the development of the US Government Greenhouse Gas Center Information and Monitoring System, building upon the NASA Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) project, which I conceptualized and initiated.

Beyond my work at NASA, I serve as an adjunct faculty member in the Atmospheric Science department at UAH, where I have mentored numerous students as a data science advisor. I also hold leadership positions in various organizations, including being a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and serving as the chair of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Earth Science Informatics Technical Committee. I am also a member of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and AGU Fall Meeting Planning Committee, European Geosciences Union (EGU), and Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI).

Appointments

Technical Committee Chair, Earth Science Informatics (ESI), Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Co-Chair, OGC Augmented Reality Markup Language 2.0
Senior Member, IEEE
Member, AGU Fall Meeting Planning Committee
Adjunct faculty, UAH Atmospheric Science Department
Co-chair Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, Big Data (BD) Interagency Working Group (IWG)
Steering Committee member of the National AI Research Resource Program

Selected Publications

Clifford Neural Operators On Atmospheric Data Influenced Partial Differential Equations
Croissant: A Metadata Format for ML-Ready Datasets
Investigating Different Data-Traceability Approaches to Prevent Data Swamps
Rethinking AI for Science: An Evolution From Data‐Driven to Data‐Centric Framework
Foundation models for generalist geospatial artificial intelligence
Applying deep learning to hail detection: A case study, IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Detection of transverse cirrus bands in satellite imagery using deep learning, Computers & Geosciences
Deepti: Deep-learning-based tropical cyclone intensity estimation system, IEEE journal of selected topics in applied Earth observations and remote sensing
Tropical cyclone intensity estimation using a deep convolutional neural network, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing
Simulation Management Systems Developed by the Northern Gulf Coastal Hazards Collaboratory (NG-CHC): An Overview of Cyberinfrastructure to Support the Coastal Modeling Community in the Gulf of Mexico,Remote Sensing and Modeling: Advances in Coastal and Marine Resources, Springer International Publishing
Talkoot: software tool to create collaboratories for earth science,Earth Science Informatics
A Neural Network-Powered Cognitive Method of Identifying Semantic Entities in Earth Science Papers
Advancing AI for Earth science: A data systems perspective, Eos
Pixel level smoke detection model with deep neural network,Image and Signal Processing for Remote Sensing, SPIE
Using sensor web protocols for environmental data acquisition and management,Ecological Informatics,Elsevier
High-Performance and Disruptive Computing in Remote Sensing: HDCRS—A new Working Group of the GRSS Earth Science Informatics Technical Committee, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine
On measuring and employing texture directionality for image classification, Pattern Analysis and Applications
Directional texture for visualization-new technique and application study, Information Visualisation
Higher order approximating normals and their impact on isosurface shading accuracy, Machine Graphics and Vision International Journal
Deep feature extraction and its application for hailstorm detection in a large collection of radar images, Signal, Image and Video Processing

Additional publications can be found at Google Scholar

Workshops Organized

DMLR Workshop: Data-centric Machine Learning Research

ICLR 2024

NASA Science Mission Directorate AI Workshop 2024

1st Workshop on Computer Vision for Earth Observation (CV4EO) Applications

IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV) 2024

DMLR Workshop: Data-centric Machine Learning Research

ICML 2023

Ethical AI for Science in Collaboration with AGU

3rd NASA Cross Center AI Workshop

NASA Science Mission Directorate AI Workshop

Advancing Machine Learning Tools for Earth Science Workshop

Challenges Organized

ETCI 2021 Competition on Flood Detection

IEEE ETCI 2021

Wind-dependent Variables: Predict Wind Speeds of Tropical Storms

Published Curated Machine Learning Datasets

Led publication of machine learning training datasets for NASA Science to AWS

Outreach Programs Organized

GRSS ESI/HDCRS Machine Learning Lifecycle in High Performance Computers and Cloud: A Focus on Foundation Models

IGARSS 2024

Joint ESA/NASA/JAXA Tutorial on Storytelling

IGARSS 2024

Large Geospatial and Language Models - Hands-on session

University of Santiago de Compostela

Data Science Summer School Session

University of Iceland, IEEE GRSS 2023

Summer School on Scaling Machine Learning for Remote Sensing using Cloud Computing Environment

IEEE GRSS 2021

Tutorial on End-to-End Machine Learning with Supercomputing and in the Cloud

IGARSS 2023

Tutorial on End-to-End MachineLearning with High Performance and Cloud Computing

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tutorial on Using Open Data, Platform, and API from NASA-ESA-JAXA Earth Observation Dashboard

IGARSS 2022

Academic Guidance and Mentorship

Thesis committee mentees:

Paridhi Parajuli (Computer Science)

Rajesh Pandey (Computer Science)

Anish Bhusal (Computer Science)

Rajesh Pandey (Computer Science)

Nishan Pantha (Computer Science)

Suraj Regmi (Computer Science)

Rajesh Pandey (Computer Science)

Meghana Nagarahalli Paramesh (Computer Science)

Prasanna Koirala (Computer Science)

Jeanne Le Roux (Atmospheric Science)

NASA SpaceApps challenge owner and mentor for several years
Data science outreach across many universities

Panel Participation

USGIF GEOINT Symposium Panel: "Geo GPT" for Real Time Geospatial Discovery
NITRD National AI Research Resource Panel at White House
Big Data and CyberGIS/AI of the Past, Present, and Future of GIScience hosted by American Association of Geographers
NASA Advisory Council, Science Committee Meeting Panel on Lowering the Boundaries to Science Research
National Academies Meeting on GeoAI and the Future of Mapping: Implications for 21st-Century Digital Resilience
Trillion Pixel Challenge, 2023: Geospatial data infrastructures
NASA Understanding Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Needs for Data and Computing Workshop
SatSummit 2022: Expanding Access to Commercial Data
Federal Government's Use of AI Event
NOAA Environmental Data Management Workshop
Living Planet Symposium 2022: Towards EO Open Science building on enabling technologies
Living Planet Symposium 2022: NASA-ESA-JAXA EO Dashboard Cooperation
IEEE Webinar on Data Harmonization Focusing on the Harmonized Landsat Sentinel
FedGeoDay 2021
Trillion Pixel Challenge, 2023: Geospatial data infrastructures: Grand challenges
2nd NOAA Workshop on Leveraging AI in Environmental Sciences: AI/ML for Environmental Data, Image, and Signal Processing
NASA Digital Transformation Virtual Event: The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)
OGC New Space Workshop
Environmental Information Management

Invited Speaker/Keynote

IEEE SMC-IT/SCC 2024:Trustworthiness of Foundation Models and What They Generate
2024 NSF Research Infrastructure Workshop
Machine Learning and Data Management for Earth Observation organized by BIFOLD
SMART SKY: Zeiss Major Planetarium
Future of Florida Summit
AI Symposium organized by US Space and Rocket Center
White House Demo Day 2023
CSPRI and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Tech Community of Interest organized by George Washington University
AI for Good, organized by ITU
American Geophysical Union Fall Meetings
Data Tools for Empowering Mission Success
Pacific Islands GIS & Remote Sensing User Conference
Cerner Healthcare Engineering Tech Talk
Civil Applications Committee

Interviews and Articles

NASA: Marshall Star Take 5
WAAY TV: AI and Weather Forecasting
AGU TV: Geospatial AI Foundation Model
Down to Earth: An Episode on Scientific Integrity
NASA and ASDI announce no-cost access to important climate dataset on the AWS Cloud