Over the past five years, I’ve become fascinated by the connection between global datasets and localized action. To me, it’s just as important to understand the rising global temperature as it is to know the temperature in my own city. However, I’ve struggled to find a clear, distinct way to compare global and local data sets in one place.

As my work has led me deeper into the climate space, I started developing a tool on the side to aggregate datasets in a way that felt both useful and engaging for my own research. Along the way, I began thinking about what it would mean to build a small community of people facing a similar challenge. While scientists have their own specialized resources, I believe citizen scientists and industry professionals need a reliable source of truth—a place where they can easily access the data they need.

There is an incredible amount of climate data tied to government funds and independent contractors, yet I find government tools frustratingly difficult to navigate when tracking down the right datasets. If you’re an insider who collects this data, the system might make sense, but for someone without a science background, it can be challenging to find the right information. So whenever I do, I organize it into a database and develop workflows to make it more accessible to others.

Sometimes, this feels like building a tool; other times, it feels like a compulsion to understand how big numbers connect back to smaller, more tangible ones. But ultimately, the goal is to make the unseen visible—so that we can all take more informed, collective action to improve our relationship with the planet we live on.