Drones!

Hey fellow nerds! Hope you're all enjoying the beginning of the week! I can’t believe it’s already June and officially summer! Between moving into a new place and doing deep edits on my thesis proposal, I’m working on a new summer schedule now that I don’t have to TA or take classes. I’m using the extra time to focus on research, and maybe a few fun things like shopping and traveling.

Got to hike to the Bright Angel Trail with my Dad and Sam in May!

Anyway, I’m itching to talk about drones! I’ve been working with and flying drones a lot this past semester as a way to learn a new skill for data acquisition for my research. It turns out learning how to fly a drone is not as easy as it looks…

The struggle is real!

But it’s been incredibly fun! You can fly drones for a number of reasons, whether it’s professional or recreational, like fancy-looking videos, photos, and surveys. For me, I’m learning that I can take large scale but detailed imagery of my study sites so that I can create high-quality hydrologic models for my research. To practice, I first performed a survey of a stretch of Revere Beach north of Boston:

Here's my study site on Revere Beach!

The purpose of the survey was to make sure that drone surveys could actually serve as an efficient alternative to manually conducted surveys for measuring beach erosion. We flew four flights on a beautiful April morning and were able to create this map:

Here's the orthmosaic showing the imagery from the drone survey with the locations of the four manual cross sections.

It was tricky, though. We were so close to the Boston Airport that the FAA authorities asked us to fly below an altitude of 80 feet to make sure we didn’t run the risk of hitting any planes. On top of that, piping plovers were nesting nearby, so we had to make sure that our drone didn’t disturb the birds. Luckily, we were not hit either a plane or a bird, and were able to come up with a few comparisons of manual to drone surveys:

 

Some of the cross sections are a little nicer than others!

I’m still doing some image processing to make the imagery a bit more accurate, and when I get it, I’ll definitely post it! But, in the meantime, feel free to contact me or comment below if you have any thoughts or questions!

On Failure

Happy March, guys! I don’t know how many of you have managed to take a vacation lately, but I took Spring Break as a chance to recharge after a very hectic couple of weeks. I’ll talk about how to get great travel deals for a grad school budget soon, but in the mean time I’ll touch upon an important point that I think is great for every grad student, scientist in a cut-throat culture, or basically any person who takes on a challenging career. The big take-home message: Failure is not only inevitable, but it’s necessary. 

 

A shot during one of my sailing trips out in the Boston Harbor. Sailing has taught me a lot about navigating around and beyond mistakes.

I know this is a common message in a lot of popular graduation speeches (e.g. J.K. Rowling and Oprah Winfrey) but it’s important. We can’t celebrate success if we don’t embrace failure. You can argue that failure is an integral part of the human experience, and is just as important as success in any career and/or life journey. I’m talking about this now because I just received a “no” when I was really hoping for a “yes.” I am definitely bummed, but it’s nice to remind myself of how those icky “no’s” can be useful. Really, it’s all about perspective.

So, when we get a dreaded “no,” what are some guidelines we can use to find the hidden benefits? For simplicity, I’ll focus on career-defined failure, but I think a lot of the tenants in these guidelines can serve for any facet of life. Here are my thoughts on dealing with failure:

1.)   Don’t let the “no” define you. Perhaps you didn’t get the result that you wanted, even after so much effort, but that doesn’t mean that either you or your work is subpar. This is just one “no” out of a series of “no’s” and “yeses” that you’ll receive in your life. Just one “no” is not enough to decide the value of your effort, so don’t let it affect how hard you try in the future.

2.)   Statistics are always in your favor. No matter how much you fail, every time you try gets you one step closer to a success. It’s like playing the lotto, except your chances are better. Do a quick exercise: in one category of trying (e.g. applying to graduate school), how many tries ended up in success? Twenty-five percent? Ten percent? Five percent? If the answer is yes, then congratulations! Your odds are a lot higher than the lotto! And all it takes is four, or ten, or twenty times to get what you want! I love playing the lotto, but I love the chances of success even more, so don’t let one number in your statistics bring you down.

3.)   Embrace the negativity. Understandably, if you’ve worked really hard on something, you’re absolutely going to feel bad about a “no” after so much effort. Not everyone agrees with me on this, but I personally think that it’s great to embrace that upset because those feelings of disappointment are valid. That being said, it’s important to be gracious to yourself and move on after acknowledging those feelings. For me, moving on could mean crying it out, going for a walk, or grabbing a drink with friends or family.

4.)   Talk about it. Don’t be ashamed of any failure you receive in your career. Be open to discussing the difficult moments because it will help you process and connect with peers and mentors.

I hope this was a helpful read! Feel free to share strategies in the comment section below!

Remote Sensing & Lagoons: How to measure inundation with aerial images

Hey geo-loves! Hope everyone was able to enjoy the weekend despite the political events that recently transpired. Going to the Women’s March in Boston last week was a really inspiring way to see people come together.

One of my photos from Instagram of the protest last weekend.

So, I’d like to talk a little bit more about my lagoons (they feel like my lagoons because I look at them so much!) and what I’m doing with them. Right now, I’m developing remote sensing for my lagoons in Salar de Atacama in Chile. What is remote sensing? It’s when you take satellite data (which in my case are images) and manipulate that data to get information.

In my case, I’ve been taking images of my lagoons and outlining the extent of their surface area in ArcGIS. By outlining the lagoons, I’m able to measure how the surface water expands and retreats through time. I am specifically focusing on a time period after a large precipitation event that occurred in March of 2015 to see how the lagoons responded to precipitation-driven recharge. Here’s a “before and after” shot of the lagoons on March 17, 2015 versus May 20, 2015.

Can you see the difference?

There’s a pretty noticeable difference, isn’t there? To measure the surface area of the lagoons, I draw polygons around the surface water extent and then use ArcGIS to measure their surface area.

I’m really excited for some new maps with even better resolution that will come out on the Landsat Imagery website later in February. I’m also excited to take this remote sensing a step further and measure the coloration of the pixels in each image to get even more accurate surface area measurements.

So what do we see in these lagoons’ responses to the March 2015 storm? First, we see that not all lagoons react uniformly. Those differences in response may indicate variations in topography, in discharge, or in recharge based on each locale’s stratigraphy. Second, we notice that the most recent lagoon changes may be a part of an ongoing decline in the over all extent of lagoons throughout the salar.

Why are these variations in lagoon surface area occurring? That’s for me to explore further in my thesis, and I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated every step of the way. In the mean time, feel free to comment on this post or e-mail me with questions or thoughts! Have a good weekend!

It’s certainly been a weird week…

And that’s an understatement, by far. I usually try to stay positive and use this blog to create good energy, but this week has been a real struggle, balancing my concerns for the future of my family and friends with understanding the full implications of the election’s results. So, I’ll take a deep breath, and run through a few concerns that we face. There are a lot of issues out there for minorities and underprivileged groups, and they’re all valid and important. However, for the purpose of this blog, I’ll focus on a few that particularly concern my interests.

First, I’ll talk about the islamophobia that occurred during the election. Popularity for the president-elect in the polls, although we all now understand how faulty they can be, suggested that his popularity surged after the tragic San Bernardino shootings. This past June, on the campaign trail, the president-elect said that he wanted a ban on all muslims entering the United States. Unfortunately, he has never fully backed down on that claim. His advisor, Kris Kobach, is now supporting a registry of muslims. 

Photo courtesy of S from Harvard Arab Weekend.

Based on the facts, there is an unmistakable, growing fear of Islam in the country. The most fearful are supporting anti-islamic discrimination. During this year’s Harvard Arab Weekend, several speakers addressed the country’s islamophobia, showing statistics like a mind-blowing 1,600% increase in hate crimes against muslims since 9/11 and eight states banning sharia law when most Americans have no idea what sharia even means. The president-elect is shamelessly playing off of that fear, taking advantage of ignorance and endangering a group of Americans that have a legal right to practice their religion.

This fear is already affecting my husband’s family. They’re living in a country where their right to exist is threatened daily. When my mother-in-law receives a death threat simply by going to the grocery store in a hijab, no one can say that liberty and justice equally serves the people of this country. Along with that, some members of Sam’s family are legally here on a temporary protected status as refugees that could be easily revoked. We are diligently monitoring the next administration’s immigration policy. As Syrians, returning to their country would pose many different risks to their safety and well-being. If they lose this status, they would also lose a second home that they’ve worked so hard to build, and would need to find a third home in a world that is increasingly hostile to refugees.

Mann & Kump (2015)

Along with all threats against minorities, there is a world-endangering threat against biggest issue of our century: climate change. The threat is inaction, as the president elect vows that he doubts the veracity of claims by climate change scientists. He hasaccordingly hired Myron Ebell, one of the most popular climate change contrarians, to direct the transition in the EPA. This appointment has many implications, including less funding for climate-related research and policies that only further put the country and the world on a faster path to harmful greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. Plus, since the president elect also vows to cut federal spending, the easiest targets are likely things that may not result in instant gratification, like scientific research.

Through my program, I know some of the most prominent climate change scientists. They share a serious concern for the future of their work. I also share their concern, not only for their future, but for mine as well. With less funding and political support, America will lose its standing as the world’s leading producer of innovative research.

My mentor gave some sage advice on how to react to this past week’s events:

“We are watching a stunning response to the deep inequities and injustices of economic globalization. It has appeared world-wide, and recently, of course, all over europe and the middle east. It makes very clear, that our essential work is to build institutions and safety nets and communities which can include everyone, absolutely everyone. A huge task, and with will and cooperation, we can do it.
I urge you now: do NOT follow out all your terrifying narratives about what might come from this. It is a waste of energy and it will exhaust you and make you powerless.
Stay curious! Stay present, in this moment. Watch what unfolds and how. We do NOT know the consequences of such a massive expression of rage and misery. Tend to your own communities, and support calm and thoughtfulness.”

Intellectually, immigrants are our most valuable import, and research is our most valuable export. Both of these things give the United States so much value on the international level, and yet both are at risk. Together, let’s support ourselves, remain diligent, and do what we can when we need to fight for what we care about.