People and ground stations

Open-weather

Sophie ‘Soph’ Dyer (they/all) is a designer, artist and researcher living between Vienna and Durham. Their work combines visual, aural and spatial storytelling with investigative and participatory methods. Soph teaches the Critical Cartographies studio at Design Academy Eindhoven and is an External Advisor to Forensic Architecture. They have worked in digital investigations and until 2023 was a member of Amnesty International’s Crisis Evidence Lab. At Amnesty, Soph led the organisation’s crowdsourcing initiative to create the first city-wide map of surveillance cameras in New York, which was used to successfully sue the NYPD. Prior to Amnesty, they were a Senior Researcher with the transparency group, Airwars, and worked for more than a decade with different cultural groups. Collaboration and experiments in pedagogy run throughout Soph’s practice. They co-organised and ran the Feminist Open Source Investigations Group (2019–2022); Free Seminar at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths (2015–2017); and Parallel School Glasgow (2014) among other initiatives.

Sasha Engelmann (she/her) is a London-based geographer exploring interdisciplinary, feminist, and creative approaches to environmental knowledge making. Her current AHRC funded project – Advancing Feminist and Creative Methods for Sensing Air and Atmosphere – explores the value of feminist principles, creative practices and ‘social design’ tools for citizen-led monitoring of air quality and weather patterns in a time of climate crisis. Her book Sensing Art in the Atmosphere: Elemental Lures and Aerosolar Practices (Routledge, 2020) investigates the role of artistic communities in activating political awareness of air and atmosphere, from clean-air breathing rights to campaigns for ‘lighter-than-air’ mobility. She is Reader in Geohumanities at Royal Holloway University of London where she teaches at the intersection of geography and the arts and humanities.

Open-weather network

The open-weather network is a group of people, spread around the world, operating DIY satellite ground stations and contributing field notes on weather and climate to the open-weather archive.

Below is a list of people and ground stations who contributed to the nowcast for COP26. Many others have participated in DIY satellite ground station workshops and submitted imagery to the open-weather archive.

Alison Scott and Aaron McCarthy (Glasgow, UK)
Anna Pasco Bolta (Munich, DE)
Ankit Sharma (Mumbai, India)
Aouefa Amoussouvi (Bucharest, Romania)
Barfrost (Kirkenes, Norway)
Bill Liles (Reston, USA)
Carl Reineman (Jefferson, USA)
Catherine Fletcher (Norfolk, USA)
Cedrick Lukunku Tshimbalanga (Kinshasa, DR Congo)
Chonmapat Torasa (Bangkok, Thailand)
Dey Kim (Seoul, South Korea)
Florent Leon Noel (Venice, Italy)
George Ridgway (Melbury Abbas, U.K.)
Jasmin Schädler (Stuttgart, Germany)
Joaquin Ezcurra and Aimee Juhazs (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Ketsia Kinsumba Muanakiese (Kinshasa, DR Congo)
L Paul Verhage (Homedale, USA)
Natasha Honey (Newcastle, Australia)
Olivia Berkowicz (Paris, France)
Pablo Cattaneo (Mar Del Plata, Argentina)
Sofia Caferri (San Vittoria, Italy)
Steve Engelmann (Los Angeles, USA)
Sybille Neumeyer (Berlin, Germany)
WXVids/Zefie (Albany, USA)
Yoshi Matsuoka (Atsugi, Japan)
Zack Wettstein (Seattle, USA)

Current and core collaborators

Beyond open-weather network, collaboration is intrinsic to how open-weather works. Below is an incomplete list of current and longstanding collaborators. Check the “Credits” section on individual pages for more comprehensive attribution.

Rectangle
Scotland-based duo Rectangle (Lizzie Malcolm and Dan Powers) frequently collaborate with open-weather on designs, ideas and code. Currently, the studio is working closely with open-weather to expand and improve the collective’s digital infrastructure, including a significant update open-weather apt ahead of the ‘Year of Weather‘ launch. Past collaborations include the COP26 Nowcast, When I image the earth I imagine another, and this website.
Bill Liles
US-based radio amateur (NQ6Z), advisor and longtime friend of open-weather. Currently, Bill is collaborating pro bono with open-weather and Rectangle on a major update to open-weather apt. Bill was an early reviewer of the DIY Satellite Ground Station Workshop Resource, collaborated on the initial build of open-weather apt, and co-authored the corresponding guide.
Grayson Earle
Berlin-based artist and educator Grayson is working with open-weather to develop an open source design for a low cost Automated Satellite Ground Station for NOAA APT. Previously, Grayson Earle worked with open-weather and Bill Liles to code open-weather apt and co-author the corresponding guide.
Golrokh Nafisi
Tehran-based visual artist, illustrator and writer Golrokh Nafisi collaborated with open-weather on the story of the Feminist Anti-fascist Weather Front.

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