The SENSE Centre for Doctoral Training would like to invite you to a one day symposium involving students, staff and partners of the centre.
The purpose of the event will be: · To showcase the work in Earth Observation and environmental science being done by the SENSE Centre for Doctoral Training · Explore opportunities for collaboration within the centre. · Network with students, companies, academics and other staff working within the area of EO · Explore future directions for research in Earth Observation and environmental science
Attendance at this event is free however limited to two attendees per organisation.
The SENSE CDT is running a training course for ‘Machine Learning and AI’ from 4 – 7 March 2024, in person, at the University of Leeds. We are delighted to be able to offer places for up to 10 UK based PhD students to attend.
Successful applicants will join the NERC SENSE CDT PhD students on the training, providing an excellent opportunity for PhD students across the UK to network. The SENSE CDT is on satellite data in environmental science, from which most of the examples will be taken.
The teaching week is a mixture of theory followed by practical exercises, keynote speakers, and transferable skills development.
Schedule
am
pm
Mon
Machine Learning AI techniques practical: classification of images, textural description
AI techniques practical: contd Keynote: New directions of AI, Prof David Hogg
Tues
Agent-based models Introduction to Urban Analytics Urban systems machine learning practical 1/2
Urban systems machine learning practical 2/2 “Dos and Don’ts of presenting”, Prof Jurgen Neuberg
Wed
The role of ATI and overview of LIDA Unsupervised classification of clouds lecture & practical
Unsupervised classification of clouds summary Keynote: Using science to influence policy, Dr Cat Scott
Thurs
Scientific Machine Learning Using machine learning in EO Alan Turing Institute lecture
Details
The course is free to successful applicants and overnight accommodation will be provided, Monday – Wednesday. However, attendees will need to book their own travel and cover their travel and subsistence costs whilst on the course. Tea, coffee and refreshments will be provided during morning and afternoon breaks.
Students will be required to bring their own laptops. Information will be given prior to the training on any software downloads required.
The training will take place, at the University of Leeds, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Fairbairn House, 71-75 Clarendon Rd, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9PH.
Attendees are expected to attend all sessions.
Pre-requisites
Applicants must be:
in the first or second year of their PhD studies
studying in an associated field, with a strong mathematical and computing background
able to demonstrate that the training is relevant to their PhD research and is unavailable at their home institution.
The SENSE CDT is running a training course for ‘Earth Observation of the Atmosphere’ from 26 February – 1 March 2024, in person, at the University of Leeds. We are delighted to be able to invite up to 10 UK based PhD students to apply to attend.
Successful applicants will join the NERC SENSE CDT PhD students on the training, providing an excellent opportunity for PhD students across the UK to network. The SENSE CDT is on satellite data in environmental science, from which most of the examples will be taken.
The teaching week is a mixture of theory followed by practical exercises, keynote speakers, and transferable skills development. At the end of the week, attendees are placed into groups and work on a group project to work, which will require them to apply the skills they have gained earlier in the week. The groups will present their work back to a small panel of experts in the field on the Friday.
Schedule
Morning Sessions
Afternoon Sessions
Mon
– Welcome from the CDT Director – Introduction to the atmosphere and NCAS – EO of the atmosphere
– Satellite observations of clouds practical – MODIS/CLOUDSAT/calypso – Severe Weather over East Africa
Tues
– Overview of weather systems – Weather forecasting lecture & exercise
– Tropical Cyclones – Measuring tropospheric ozone pollution and precursors from space – spectrometry theory – Sentinel-5p for monitoring air quality practical
– Sentinel-5p for monitoring air quality practical – Discovering the Ozone Hole
Thurs
– Keynote talk: “Things I learned from 3 decades of atmospheric research” Professor Ken Carslaw – Introduction to Group project work activity
– Group project work
Fri
– Group project work
– Group work presentations
Details
The course is free to successful applicants and overnight accommodation will be provided, Monday – Thursday. However, attendees will need to book their own travel and cover their travel and subsistence costs whilst on the course. Tea, coffee and refreshments will be provided during morning and afternoon breaks.
Students will be required to bring their own laptops. Information will be given prior to the training on any software downloads required.
The training will take place, at the University of Leeds, National Centre for Atmospheric Science, Fairbairn House, 71-75 Clarendon Rd, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9PH.
Attendees are expected to attend all sessions.
Pre-requisites
Applicants must be:
in the first or second year of their PhD studies
studying in an associated field, with a strong mathematical and computing background
able to demonstrate that the training is relevant to their PhD research and is unavailable at their home institution.
In 2023 SENSE was lucky enough to be awarded Skills Enhancement funding by our funder NERC which will allow us to create some additional opportunities for our own students and also open our current training activities to students outwith the CDT. With our field skills trip to Firbush scheduled for June 2023 we were excited to create this opportunity and a few months before the trip launched an application process for this. We were really lucky to be joined by some excellent PhD colleagues from various universities around the UK.
Estelle Darko is a student at the University of Birmingham whose research is focussed on forest diversity. Estelle was particularly interested in the forest inventory activities as it is directly aligned with her research. She said of the week:
I found the training to be surprisingly useful and quite relevant to my research so I would consider the funding as having been used well. I was also able to meet researchers in my field who go to similar conferences who I may have otherwise not easily spoken to otherwise so it was effective networking.
Fiona Woods is based at the University of Southampton and is looking at native oyster reefs in the Solent. As much of Fiona’s research is based in the lab and in situ measurements she was really keen to expand her knowledge of remote sensing. As well as gaining knowledge of the technical aspects of the training the best part of her week was:
To be Able to meet other PhDs doing completely different research to myself, and how willing everyone was to share their work and ideas
Fiona was also very interested to hear about the NERC Field Spectroscopy facility and how their equipment was available to hire for free and at a low cost.
Ian Willey is based at the University of Leeds and he has recently started a PhD evaluating woodland creation schemes in the UK, Ian is currently exploring different remote methods in his research but keen to find out more about the potential of using satellite data for this. The best thing about the course for Ian was:
Hands-on experience with equipment, approachability and knowledge of staff/demonstrators, the Firbush setting itself together with the food, structure of the day and facilities. Beyond this, doing activities with other PhD students and having dinner with them everyday helped discussion and created bonds which are great for learning.
Anna Stanforth is also based at the University of Southampton and working on a assessing ecosystem services from local to landscape scale to improve agricultural sustainability and productivity in Papua New Guinea. Anna was really keen to pick up some field techniques and pick up some tips and tricks before heading in the field herself.
My own DTP does not offer anything near this training and therefore being able to tag onto another training course was invaluable. It also helped with networking and generally getting out of my own PhD environment which can easily become a bubble.
Nitin Ravinder is based at CPOM at the University of Leeds working on Detecting Ice Sheet Dynamical Imbalance using Satellite Altimetry and was keen to gain experience of drone flying before potentially taking part in some field campaigns on ice sheets.
Firstly, a big thank you to NERC for the funding and hence the opportunity. Most of the training was a first experience for me. I learnt quite a lot about field work, the kind of planning that goes into one, the kind of adaptability required for completing one, the unexpectedness of it all. I’m hoping to use this knowledge in any future field work opportunity I might get and only build on what I have learnt. I’m confident in being able to take part in field work in more challenging environment that comes with my field of research and I only have this training to thank for it.
Luke Richardson-Foulger is studying at Kings college London looking at High Latitude Peatland Fires and their Greenhouse Gas Emissions and was keen to gain experience of some of the methods which will be used in his research
Luke particularly enjoyed the drone activities and the ACDP demonstrations and found it very useful to network with other PhDs
Rachel Walker studies at the University of Nottingham as part of the Geospatial Systems CDT and her research focusses on developing a product to assess the success of peat restoration techniques through the integration of geospatial methods and will be using a variety of range of remotely sensed data (hyperspectral, multispectral, InSAR, thermal and lidar) for this.
It was beneficial as my CDT does not offer training on UAV or field spectroscopy and these both directly link to my research. It was also interesting to meet people from the SENSE CDT and elsewhere to find out what they are doing and network.
Safaa’Al Awadhi is based at the School of Geoscience at the University of Edinburgh and is working on Oil spill detection in the offshore marine environment using thermal and SAR remote sensing and was keen to gain techniques to use UAV’s in the safe detection of oil spills. Safaa particularly enjoyed the talks from Calum Hoad and Charlotte Walshaw on their fieldwork experiences>
I liked seeing the PhD students progress and their EO applications in Antarctica and the Arctic. Their talk method had an element of storytelling with lots of photos and humor which I thought was great.
She said of the week in general:
Thank you for the invitation. As an internationally funded PhD student, it can be isolating not being part of a cohort such as NERC E3 or E4 or SENSE, etc. Being part of the SENSE field training for a week provided some opportunity for shared activities with fellow PhD students and a chance to network with them. I look forward for future similar opportunities.
Thank you to all of those who joined the trip this year – it was great to see everyone getting to know each other and working together in groups. It was brilliant to expand our network and meet new people. Thank you very much to NERC for funding this – we are already making plans for next year’s training and hope to make places available to attend this and other training events.
So after last year’s very successful Firbush field skills trip we thought we really couldn’t top it but how wrong we were. In June 2023 24 SENSE students and some special invited guest students (more about them later) headed north to the beautiful University of Edinburgh field skills centre at Firbush point on Loch Tay for a week of field skills training, outdoor pursuits and cohort building with staff from the School of Geoscience.
Collecting data in the field is very important when working with satellite data as it is often used to validate what we can see from the air and track down the locations where the data has been collected. Very important when dealing with data from vast areas.
The forecast for the week was looking good so the group were in high spirits when they arrived. First on the agenda was some outdoor activities including paddleboarding, sailing, windsurfing and orienteering before dinner and an introduction to the first two days training activities.
Drone operation led by Tom Wade (Airborne Research and Innovation) assisted by out fantastic demonstrators Liz Poulsom (E4 DTP) and SENSE students Charlotte Walshaw and Calum Hoad. Calum, Charlotte and Liz all use drones as part of their PhD research and have experience of using them in the field. Before we started Tom explained the process of risk assessment for flying drones and then everyone was able to get some experience of flying some of the smaller Mavic 2 & 3 drones. After everyone had a chance to try out the drones it was time for the team challenge – come up with a short drone flying sequence with a commentary and an entertaining accompaniment. The teams really rose to the challenge with some excellent flying and some inventive dance routine accompaniments although team ‘Mavic Mike’ was the overall winner.
Day two of the drone training was focused on more complex drone operations such as demonstrations of collecting Lidar data from the surrounding forests and how to use a ranging station to record the points you are flying over. Calum and Charlotte also gave a talk in the evening about how they had used drone work in their field research – Charlotte in Antarctica and Calum in the Canadian arctic – hint watch out for bears.
We were also joined by Alex Merrington and Craig Atkins from the NERC field spectroscopy facility which is based at the University of Edinburgh. Field spectroscopy relates to the measurement of the optical characteristics of a surface and provides quantitative measurements of radiance, irradiance, reflectance or transmission. Analysis of specific areas of the spectral data can infer properties of the sample material, and various indices exist to quantify various parameters. The students had a chance to collect some data and then analyse it. FSF were also able to introduce their service which allows NERC funded researchers and PhD students to borrow equipment at no or very low cost to use in the field.
Our final activity was delivered by Harry Carstairs who has recently completed his PhD with the Mitchard group. Equipment for this was much more low tech in that included a tape measure and clinometer for measuring the height of trees. The challenge was to take a 20m radius section and measure the forest biomass. Harry is more used to the exotic location of the forest of Gabon for this type of field work but being a good field scientist had remembered an essential bit of kit for the students – midgie nets! The groups were given a few hours to do this and a few instructions so it was really interesting to see the different methods used and results they came up with. A great team building exercise as well as learning.
Day 4 of the training saw a change of team as we were joined by Mikael Attal and Alan Hobbs from the school of geosciences who was demonstrating the Acoustic Dopper Current Profiler (ADCP) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). The ADCP is used extensively by the Land Surface Dynamics group to investigate river velocity, turbulence, and erosional and sediment transport potential. It sits on a small craft which is towed behind a canoe and was taken in transects across the loch to give some information about what is happening under the surface. Mikael also gave a talk in his research which is part of the Land Surface Dynamics group and the students were particularly interested in his work on landslips.
The group was also joined during the week by team ice Anna Crawford, Bea Ricinos Rivas and Dan Goldberg from the glaciology research group who gave talks about their research. As a interdisciplinary centre SENSE covers a wide variety of topic areas we like to give our students opportunities to find out about areas of interest out with their normal research areas.
The week’s training ended with some more outdoor activities, another swim in the loch, a games night and then after another hearty breakfast the group headed back to Edinburgh on Friday morning a bit tired but happy with lots of new ideas and some new connections. It had been a great week in a fantastic location and a chance for the SENSE students to spend some time together and get to know their fellow students and staff a little bit better. Thank you so much to Tom, Liz, Charlotte, Calum, Harry, Alex, Craig, Alan, Mikael, Anna, Bea, Kathy and all the Firbush staff for an amazing trip and a really big shout out to Eleanor and Dan who worked so hard to put the week together.
Oh and also to mention a very exciting spot of a beaver near the centre – it seems word of the training got out!
On 22nd May a group of 12 Cohort 1 & 2 SENSE students headed to the European Space Agency ESRIN facility in Frascati which is just outside Rome to attend an Earth System Science Workshop. The workshop aimed to train participants in working with ESA’s Deep Earth System Data Lab (DeepESDL), exploring the scientific potential of its multivariate datasets and analytics capabilities for Earth System research.
The centre is very grateful to all of those at ESA and their associates who made this trip possible and those who took time out of their busy working day to spend time with the students.
The SENSE CDT will be running a field skills course from 3rd – 7th June 2024 at the University of Edinburgh outdoor centre at Firbush on Loch Tay. We have a small number of places available on this course for which UK based UKRI PhD students may apply to attend.
The Learning Objectives include:
To learn how to collect remote sensing data from drone platforms safely and effectively
To learn how to collect calibration data for Earth Observation satellites using
Field Spectroscopy equipment
The measurement of trees through forest inventory plots
To learn general fieldwork and teamwork skills, including how to work safely and collect reliable and useful data outside controlled settings
There will also be opportunities to take part in outdoor activities and participate in research talks and informal networking with other PhD students.
Coach travel will be available from Edinburgh departing at 9am on Monday 3rd June and returning Friday 7th June around lunchtime. Travel, accommodation and meals during the trip are included. Please note that arranging travel to Edinburgh and will be the responsibility of the student. For students based outwith Edinburgh the centre may be able to arrange accommodation on Sunday 2nd June.
It is recommended that those attending have warm and water proof clothing and walking boots as the training takes place outside; midge repellent and a midge net is also recommended.
2nd Year SENSE student Ashar attended an event at the Natural History Museum in January, featuring on a podcast panel discussion on the intersection between racial and environmental justice.
On 26th January, I was invited to be a guest speaker on the podcast, “Two Chickpeas in a Podcast”, who were running a session and live episode recording at an event run by the Natural History Museum’s Explorers Programme. The podcast focused on the intersection between racial and environmental justice, and the disproportionate impact of climate change on people of colour (PoC).
The Explorers Programme supports and encourages those from racially marginalised backgrounds into careers related to Earth, environmental and ecological sciences, highlighting that everyone deserves the right to access. The programme’s events include an annual careers conference for professionals, early career researchers and undergraduate students, a Build a Museum event for sixth form students, and family festivals revolving around the natural environment.
The event, Explorers Night: Mind, Body, Space, ran from 6-10pm. The public were allowed to roam parts of the Natural History Museum freely to immerse themselves in experiences brought by scientists, creatives and activists exploring our relationship with nature. These address various obstacles to us enjoying nature which stem from societal perspectives and treatment of race, and other aspects of our identity. Several activities were run, including a sensory space related to the marine realm, special tours of collections, nature-related poetry, workshops and quiz games, a Talkaoke (live drop-in talk show) and a patchwork quilt collaborative art project.
From left to right, Josh Virasami, Nikkita Beghi (podcast host), Ashar, and Natasha Beghi (podcast host), smiling while stood around a board which says ‘Two Chickpeas in a Podcast: An Explorers Night Event, #ExplorersNight’. They are stood at the base of a staircase near to the Attenborough Studio and Spirit Collection at the Natural History Museum, London.
“Two Chickpeas in a Podcast” is hosted by sisters Natasha and Nikkita Beghi from West London. The podcast explores what it means to be a British Asian in the modern day, in terms of identity and heritage. I joined Josh Virasami, an activist, artist and author involved in political and climate justice movements, on the podcast panel for the live episode. We discussed various topics including:
What are the perceptions of climate migrants in the media?
What would happen if UK residents had to seek refuge in other countries due to climate change?
Who does the work to look at the climate crisis and how it affects PoC?
How do we work through the crisis when there is an inherent hierarchy in who can publish, progress in their careers, access climate education and display information?
How should activists go about looking at climate change – should we describe it as a crisis/emergency or in another manner?
What can we do about climate change and can we reverse it?
You can find links for listening to the podcast, as well as others in their series, here.
PhD Project Title: Ice sheet-ocean interactions: using satellite data to understand ice dynamic change
A headshot of Ross stood on a small cliff, with the sea behind him and waves breaking on rocks. He has dark brown hair and a short ginger beard, and is wearing light brown glasses, a blue hat, a green jacket, and a red jumper.
What is your background?
I am a 2nd year glaciology PhD student with the SENSE CDT, based at the University of Leeds. I studied for an MPhys integrated masters degree in physics at the University of Edinburgh from 2015-2020 and while doing so I became very interested in programming. This was really unexpected as I has no prior experience, but I loved the endless possibilities and creativity which it allowed. I realised how vital software is to solving problems in every scientific field and after I graduated I worked as a data scientist for an Edinburgh based Earth observation start up. I continued this until I started my PhD in October 2021 and I’ve brought my love of coding with me into my PhD, where I am analysing very large satellite imagery datasets using High-performance computing.
Tell us about your project and the area of environmental science you are most excited about
My project looks at the interaction between the Antarctic Ice Sheet and the Southern Ocean. I’m using satellite imagery to measure the speed of the glaciers flowing into the ocean, which we do by tracking the movement of features on the surface of the ice such as crevasses. The satellites I use are part of the Sentinel-1 constellation, which is able to take images over almost the entire Antarctic coast as frequently as every 6 days. This has given us unprecedented amounts of data compared to previous missions (which could only provide this speed measurements around once per month) and helps us monitor shorter term variations in the speed of the ice. Changes in the temperature of the ocean at the edge of the ice sheet can affect the flow of the ice, causing changes in the amount of ice flowing into the ocean and contributing to sea level rise. I’m aiming to compare ocean temperature observations to my measurements of ice speed to examine how ocean temperature is causing ice acceleration. Understanding how our planet’s ice sheets interact with the climate is vital to predicting future rates of sea level rise and I’m very excited to be able to do research which contributes in part to this goal.
Map of ice velocity ranging from 0 to 4000 metres per year over Pine Island Glacier in the Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica. The data was processed from two sequential images from the Sentinel-1 satellites in October 2021.
Was using satellite data at the core of your PhD project important to you?
Using satellite data was a deal breaker for me when it came to selecting a PhD. I wanted to be able to combine climate and space science, and satellite data was the perfect means for me to do this. I also knew I wanted to work with satellite imagery as I enjoy the visual aspect of the data. Satellite data is vital to studying the whole extent of the Antarctic Ice Sheet and without it we would struggle to cover the vast extent of the continent. Conveniently it also means that you can do this kind of glaciology research from anywhere in the world as long as you have a computer, as access to the satellite data I use has been made free and open by the European Commission’s Copernicus Program. I really enjoy the challenge that the volume of satellite data poses and the new tools and infrastructure which the scientific community are developing to perform environmental science at this scale.
Why did you decide to enter the space sector?
I always had an interest in the space sector while I was an undergraduate and knew I would definitely like to work in it in some capacity, but it was only when I discovered Earth observation that I realised I could combine my interest in the physics and engineering side of space with climate science. Space also led me to polar science in a roundabout way: I learnt that certain Antarctic research stations were sometimes used as analogues for deep space exploration, which I thought was really interesting, and from this I quickly became interested in exploring and studying the polar regions and eventually focused on glaciology.
Ross standing in front of his poster at the European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium in Bonn, Germany in May 2022. The poster is titled “Steady ice flow on to Sulzberger Ice Shelf in 2017-2021 from feature tracking of Sentinel-1 imagery“.
What does equity, diversity and inclusion mean to you?
I think it is important that everyone feels welcomed and supported at work and is able to be themselves. Academia can be a particularly confusing system to navigate for people without any prior experience and so I think it is vital that everyone is given the opportunity and support to thrive in their research discipline.
What are your hopes for future PhD students?
SENSE is doing a great job at making sure we are supported through wellbeing and EDI work and this has definitely made the transition to studying for a PhD a much easier process. It would be great to see more this kind of support become the norm for PhD students, regardless of whether they are part of a larger cohort such as a CDT/DTP. There is a growing push to see PhD students treated as employees of the university (as in many other countries) and I think this would be a great benefit to all PGRs, giving us the rights and benefits which come from proper employment.
Ross standing beside a tall blue sign showing the logo of the British Antarctic Survey outside their headquarters in Cambridge.
Any tips for those interested in applying for PhDs?
Find a topic/project which you’re really curious about and can see yourself studying in detail for the next 3-4 years. Talk to potential supervisors but also reach out and talk to the PhD students in research groups you might like to join – it’s a great way to get a better understanding of what it’s like to work in that environment. If you’re currently working, don’t forget to explain the experience and skills you’ve gained since graduating in your application. Even if the work is not directly related to the project, what you’ve learnt will almost certainly be of use at some point in your research!
PhD Project Title: Counting Elephants from Space: Applying Statistical Ecology and Satellite Data to Elephant Conservation
Image of Rebecca smiling while stood in front of trees and a flowing stream.
What is your background?
I’m currently a first year PhD researcher at the University of Edinburgh with the SENSE CDT program, and my project combines statistical ecology and machine learning to study elephants from space. My journey here was a slightly winding trail. Before coming to SENSE, I did a Mathematics BSc at The University of Leeds which I really enjoyed, before specializing with an MSc in Statistics at Imperial College London. I liked exploring the vast array of statistical methods out there, but wanted a break from ‘pure’ maths by that point. Still interested in more commercially focused problem-solving, I spent 1 year trying out various business strategy roles.
In my spare time, I’d been reading around the latest applications of ML / AI over traditional analytical methods, and decided to join an analytics consultancy to pursue this, where the focus was on building custom data-driven products. Over 4 years, I developed from a Data Analyst to an Analytics Engineer and built my coding skills up from basic R simulations, to pythonising code for production systems. Reading around initiatives to counter the environment crisis, I saw how state-of-the-art analytics will play a significant role, and wanted to apply my skills in the same way. I was drawn to my project, as it had a strongly statistical focus and would enable me to work within conservation research. The gaps in my skillset were that I didn’t have any background in Earth observation, or even applied science – I stopped physics/chemistry/biology/geography after GCSE, but I think a willingness to learn is what can get you by.
Tell us about your project and the area of environmental science you are most excited about
The aim of my project is to develop statistical methods which will make live satellite monitoring of African elephants more feasible. It has been shown (Duporge et al., 2021) that AI can detect elephants in images, but there’s a number of steps from this in order to take sample counts from AI and scale them up reliably for conservation efforts.
Elephants roam huge distances across protected and non-protected areas in Africa, and therefore monitoring exact population sizes with aerial surveys has being hugely time and effort intensive. With satellites able to cover much larger extents with ease, the hope is to be able to integrate satellite monitoring into current conservation efforts.
Integrating satellite data into conservation is just one example of the ‘AI for Conservation’ research area, which I’m hugely excited about for its potential to contribute to protecting many endangered species. There’s so many interesting applications where AI has made a difference, for example enabling unique identification of individuals and wildlife censuses, animal recognition in camera trap data, acoustic detection of animals, live poaching warning systems,… the list goes on!
In addition to the algorithmic developments, the creation of robust, open-source hardware (drones, camera traps, GPS trackers etc) are also vital to this area, and there are many pioneers creating innovative solutions to challenging problems.
For anyone interested in knowing more, nature communications recently released a great review paper – D Tuia et al., 2022.
Very high resolution drone imagery of several elephants within forest/jungle
Was using satellite data at the core of your PhD project important to you?
Yes and no (if that counts as an answer). Before coming across the SENSE CDT I wasn’t really aware of the analytical power of satellite data, in particular how crucial it will be to monitoring and countering large scale environmental changes. So in that sense, I wasn’t initially set on a project with this focus.
However, after seeing my project advertised and reading around what can be achieved via remote sensing, it was a skillset that I knew I wanted to learn. The fact that SENSE provides in-depth training across a range of environmental applications of satellite data was very important me, as I wanted to develop a solid foundational understanding given that I’d be new to the field.
Why did you decide to enter the space sector?
Pursuing a PhD was mainly a career decision, but it was a happy accident that such a cool project also unlocked pathways into the space sector! I’ve always found the space sector interesting, but felt that I didn’t have the scientific grounding to pursue a career there, so it wasn’t on my radar.
The satellite-space sector is a hugely exciting place to be right now, with new launch ports opening in UK, continuing democratization of higher resolution data and a highly active research community.
What does equity, diversity and inclusion mean to you?
It’s a really important issue – everyone should feel able to be true to themselves where they work, regardless of their personal beliefs, background or circumstances.
I believe that each person plays a part in creating a culture of openness, acceptance and encouragement where others can thrive. Culture is vital, but some barriers can only be overcome with proper institutional support. In SENSE’s case, we have a dedicated D&I officer and policies to ensure equal opportunities for all. There’s a nice camaraderie across the cohorts too, which is lovely!
Any tips for those interested in applying for PhDs?
It’s good to think about if the change from a lesson based style if you’re coming from undergraduate, or structured teamwork if coming from industry, to a personal research project is something you’re sure you would enjoy.
Don’t shy away from being bold in explaining that you have the skills and enthusiasm to do your chosen project. This is something that I’ve found hard in the past and it can feel unnatural, but it helps so much during the interview process.
Trying out coding tutorials can be helpful to understand the type of data you may work with, and what your bread-and-butter of satellite based analysis will consist of.
