This talk will be an overview of the structure, goals, and progress of NMFS’ advanced technology Strategic Initiatives. These 7 teams were stood up in 2023 to operationalize the use of social science and six priority technology areas (UxS, active acoustics, passive acoustic monitoring, ‘omics, optics, and remote sensing) in NMFS’ data acquisition enterprise. This is a key step in modernizing and diversifying the options available to inform agency management decisions.
The Strategic Initiatives (SIs) are a major agency priority and are supported by $50.2M in Inflation Reduction Act funds under the Climate-Ready Fisheries umbrella. There has been widespread interest within NMFS in the work being done by the SI working groups, which includes acquiring and deploying new uncrewed platforms, developing AI/ML analytical pipelines, and migrating data storage and processing environments to the cloud to support national collaboration.
This session will share progress with interested attendees outside of NMFS, and will tie in with another proposed session on the data management challenges and lessons learned as part of the SI efforts.
