Dr. Robert S. Chen is director of CIESIN, the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, a research unit of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He manages the NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and co-leads the IPCC Data Distribution Center. He is a member of ICSU’s ad hoc Strategic Coordinating Committee on Information and Data (SCCID) and a co-chair of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Data Sharing Task Force. He serves as an ex officio member of the Board on Research Data and Information of the US National Research Council. At Columbia, Dr. Chen is an ex officio member of the Earth Institute Faculty and a member of its Practice Committee. His research areas include disaster risk assessment, climate change vulnerability and adaptation, environment and security, and data access and stewardship. Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and M.S. and B.S. degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a member of the CODATA Executive Committee in 2002 and has served as Secretary General since 2004.