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Hello NEON Community,
Many of you may know me as the NEON Science Lead, but it is my pleasure to greet you all as the Acting Chief Scientist and Observatory Director this month. I am honored to guide NEON during this interim period and share in NEON’s excitement about a couple of updates and upcoming activities.
As we previewed in our March newsletter and prior Data Notifications, as of June 30, 2026, NEON now requires users to sign in with a user account or use an API token to download data products and sample data. Additionally, all data products are now released under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. These changes will support more reliable data access for users, as well as clearer attribution and improved understanding of how NEON data and samples are used. More information and how these changes might impact you is available in the series of Data Notifications, accessible here. With these changes, we also remind you to update your neonUtilities R package to version 4.0.0 and the neonutilities Python package to version 2.0.0. You will find several resources in the newsletter to support users during this update.
If you have any questions about these changes, use our Contact Us form to get in touch, or visit us at the upcoming Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting! NEON will have another great year of activities at ESA 2026, held in Salt Lake City, July 26-31. Don’t forget time is running out to pre-register for the field trip to the Onaqui NEON field site. NEON is also coordinating with GBIF, ESA, EDI, LTER Network and the Imageomics Institute on a breadth of sessions, symposia, and workshops, as well as supporting sessions and workshops led by NEON ambassadors and the 2025 NEON Convergence Summit education working group. Additionally, anyone giving an oral presentation about NEON-related research and indicating their interest in participating through our form are eligible to receive the Best NEON Presentation Award. To view the full list of activities, visit the NEON at ESA 2026 event page.
As always, NEON continues to offer an open door to connect with us about your research, ideas, or questions. For example, we recently welcomed researchers at the D04 and D07 offices and the NEON Biorepository for tours of the sites and facilities and were pleased to coordinate with the NSF ASCEND Engine in Colorado and Wyoming to provide a tour of NEON HQ to visitors from the Brookings Institution. Reach out to us via the Contact Us form at any time.
Warm Regards,
Kate Thibault, Acting Chief Scientist and Observatory Director
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