Brief CIESIN History

CIESIN was founded in 1989 as a consortium of universities and research institutions aimed at developing interdisciplinary data and information resources for understanding global change. CIESIN's first president was Jack Lousma, a former NASA astronaut. Dr. Roberta Balstad became CIESIN's second president in 1993. Under her leadership, CIESIN grew to more than 100 staff members in four offices in Saginaw and Ann Arbor, Michigan, Washington DC, and Ft. Collins, Colorado, and won several awards for its information technology activities, including the Computerworld Smithsonian Award for Innovation in Energy, Environment and Agriculture. CIESIN was also designated the World Data Center for Human Interactions in the Environment by the International Council for Science (ICSU).

In 1997, CIESIN conducted a national search for a new host institution. An external committee narrowed eleven full applications to four, and the CIESIN Board of Trustees selected Columbia University. In July 1998, CIESIN became a center within the Earth Instituteand arrived in the middle of a heat wave with just twelve staff members, a large data archive, many computers, and lots of furniture and boxes. Since then, CIESIN has grown to more than 40 staff members and students and greatly expanded its research, educational, and data and information management activities with partners at the EI, across the University, in the New York metropolitan area, and around the U.S. and the world.

For more information about CIESIN, please see our home page.