About

The goal of the MER PORTAL is to ensure that people who have no connection to the mission have what they need to find an analyze MER data:

  1. User Guides that enable data analysis
  2. Links to existing tools and websites relevant to the MER mission and scientific analysis
  3. An intuitive science-based search with the capability of downloading slected data from the PDS
  4. Contextual information
  5. Data quality indicators
  6. Visualization tools

We are currently (2024) in Phase 1 of this project, funded by a NASA Planetary Data Archiving, Restoration, and Tools grant (80NSSC23K0022). With this award, we are focusing on the first two categories above, and setting the stage (beginning the development life cycle) of the third.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA)

The goal of the MER PORTAL project is to make MER data fully accessible to experienced Mars researchers who were not on the MER team, undergraduates doing summer projects, high school teachers assigning enrichment projects, space enthusiasts in remote locations, etc., including people with a wide range of abilities and disabilities. In short, we believe that anyone should be able to use MER data. EDIA is one of our core values and is incorporated throughout this project.

Aspects of the MER PORTAL team’s organization relevant to EDIA include:

  • A collaboration with the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) in Albuqureque, NM, based on long-standing relationships with a member of our team, to work with (and pay) SIPI teachers to develop lesson plans based on our MER Image Interpretation Handbook. The SIPI teachers have full control over their lesson plans; our only requirements are that they be made freely available and that they make use of our Handbook, which we will tailor to their needs.
  • A paid Accessibility Consultant, who identifies as a person with disabiliities, who has been a member of the MER PORTAL team from the start. He will ensure that the MER PORTAL websites goes beyond the minimum accessibility requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to enable people with a wide range of abilities, disabilities, and accessibility requirements to access and use planetary data.
  • An Ombud to mediate any misunderstandings or interpersonal issues

Our team's diversity:

  • 53% of team members are women and/or people with feminine gender expression, including 3/5 of our leadership
  • 2/5 of our leadership identify as Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC)
  • At least 13% of our team members identify as having a disability and/or chronic illness(es)
  • We work at JPL, NASA, research-focused (R1) universities, non-profit research institutes, the PDS, commuter colleges, the USGS, museums, corporations, and high schools. Some of us are self-employed, work part-time, or are not currently working.
  • Our team members’ ages range from 20s to 70s, from early-career to retirement. Many of us have had career interruptions or changes.