Juliet Norton

I am an Informatics Research Scholar in the Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering at Purdue University working with Dr. Ankita Raturi. Currently, I am the data steward for two cooperative agreements between OpenTEAM and the USDA NRCS that focus on producer reporting data from implemented conservation practices and conservation cost data. I continue to operate as the data steward for the regional Cover Crop Councils. I also support the axi lab’s work on the Plant Data Service. Previously, I was the co-project manager for the NECCC Cover Crop Species Selector Tool, data steward for the NECCC and MCCC Seeding Rate Calculator, data steward for the SCCC Species Selector Tool, and interim project manager of the Informatics for Community Food Resilience projects. The bulk of my service work is in support of the Gathering for Open Ag Tech. I am a contributor to the initiatives led by Precision Sustainable Agriculture and OpenTEAM. I work remotely from my home in Martinez, CA.

My driving research interest is to explore and develop the union of agriculture and information ecologies. I particularly like to engage and support farmers, growers, and community food coordinators in efforts to transform the technology-supported food system into one that furthers food security, food sovereignty, and holistic sustainability. Currently I’m involved in curating and serving open plant data, developing open agriculture technology, and exploring the need of and opportunity for technology stewardship in agro-information ecologies.

I began my work at Purdue as a post-doc. Earlier in my post-doc I was with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems at NC State and the Sustainable Agricultural Systems Lab at USDA ARS, where I began my ongoing work on cover crop decision support tools. I received my PhD in Information and Computer Science from the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, where I worked with grassroots sustainable agriculture communities in identifying and addressing the barriers to entry to sustainable agriculture practices. You can download my dissertation here.