Earth Data Analytics Certificate Cohorts

Lana Kurakina	Final Project: How Do We Decide What Land to Protect?
Rachel Michaels	Final Project: Sensors and Sunlight: How We Can Identify Plant Species From Space
Eric Nutt	Final Project: How Do We Decide What Land to Protect?
Christy Sandberg	Final Project: How Do We Decide What Land to Protect?
Avra Saslow	Final Project: How Much Water Makes a Flood?
Kristen Tortorelli	Final Project: How Much Water Makes a Flood?
Jensen Widtfeldt	Final Project: Using Remote Sensing to Evaluate Green Infrastructure
Jacquelyn Witte	Final Project: Soil Moisture and Rainfall During Landslides
Heidi Yoon	Final Project: After the Burn: Vegetation Regrowth

2020-2021 Cohort

Tina Andry

I currently work for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in the Water Resource Management group on various conservation and water use efficiency projects.

With the support of the Metropolitan, I started the CU Earth Data Analytics professional certificate program in Fall 2020.

I have a BS in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS in Applied Geosciences from the University of Washington and am hoping to broaden my programming and data analysis skills through this program to address various resource management questions within our group.

Ahdieh Ashrafi

For the past three years, I’ve been a strategy, planning, and analytics professional in Los Angeles. Previously, I worked as a senior consultant in New York City.

I earned my Master of Science in Analytics from North Carolina State Institute in Advanced Analytics, and my Bachelors of Science in Management from Babson College focused on both Entrepreneurship and Statistical Modeling.

Throughout my career, I have collaborated with a variety of different teams to adopt sustainable analytics products for decision-making. While working in an agile project setting, I have acquired investigating requirements, designing analytics data architectures, strategizing and forming frameworks and methodologies.

I continue to strive for a creative technology career through continuing education and creating new and efficient analytics solutions cross-industry.

Emi C. Fergus

I earned a Ph.D. and an M.S. degree in Fisheries and Wildlife from Michigan State University and a B.A. degree from Kalamazoo College in Biology.

I am a landscape limnologist researcher who applies theory and approaches from the fields of landscape ecology, and macrosystem ecology to support the management and conservation of lakes, streams, and wetlands.

I am excited to be part of the UC Earth Data Analytics program to develop open science practices and gain hands-on experience coding in Python with real-world applications.

I hope to apply these skills in my current research position with the US Environmental Protection Agency examining variation in hydrologic characteristics of lakes across the continental US and in future job prospects.

Bridget Floyd

I earned a B.A. in Geology from the University of California, Berkeley (2013) and recently finished a MSc. in Environmental Science at Trinity College Dublin (2020).

In my dissertation, I used remotely-sensed drone data to assess seasonal changes in salt marsh morphology.

I am currently a Geologist at the United States Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District, where I work on environmental remediation and geomorphology projects.

I am interested in using remote sensing to promote data-based decision making to solve environmental issues. In my spare time, I enjoy knitting and backpacking.

Eric Gottlieb

I have been working as a geologist for a small, privately-held oil company in Tulsa, Oklahoma since completing my Ph.D. in Geological and Environmental Studies from Stanford University in late 2017. At Stanford, I carried out a geochronology- and tectonics- focused dissertation on zircon inheritance in granitic magmas under the guidance of Elizabeth Miller.

For the past several years, I have also been working part-time as a consultant for clients interested in probabilities and causes of wildland fires in California. I have additional prior experience working as an operations geologist (geosteering) in the petroleum industry, and as a wildland fire professional for the various federal land management agencies.

In addition to my doctorate, I also have a B.S. Geology degree from Western Washington University and an M.S. Geology degree from New Mexico State University. I started the Earth Data Analytics-Foundations program in the Fall of 2020 as an attempt to broaden my data science/analysis skillset, and am especially interested in automating data compilation/processing workflows and honing my geospatial skillset.

Ted Hallum

I am a U.S. Army Veteran and former mid-career Intelligence Analyst turned Data Scientist. I enjoy programming with Python, building machine learning/deep learning models, and working with spatial data. In terms of academics, I am presently pursuing CU Boulder’s Professional Graduate Certificate in Earth Data Analytics.

Additionally, I hold an M.S. in Business Analytics from the College of William & Mary, a B.S. in Biblical Studies from Toccoa Falls College, and an A.A.S. in Intelligence Operations from Cochise College. Since transitioning to the field of data science, I have been fortunate to support multiple Department of Defense agencies.

Currently, I am a data scientist with the Battelle Memorial Institute supporting the U.S. Army; however, in January 2021 I am transitioning to a new role designing next-generation AI/ML solutions as a Lead Machine Learning Engineer with Octo Consulting.

Christian Haselwimmer

I currently work as a lead remote sensing scientist within the Environment and Sustainability Group of Chevron’s Enterprise Technical Center.

In this role, I have responsibility for providing technical consulting and remote sensing/geospatial data processing to support environmental applications across the enterprise as well as managing research projects focused on environmental remote sensing.

Prior to joining Chevron, I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks where I led a variety of satellite/aerial/UAS remote sensing research projects focused on quantitative geothermal site characterization and wildlife habitat mapping.

I earned a Ph.D. in Geological Remote Sensing from Imperial College London and the British Antarctic Survey, an MSc in Remote Sensing from University College London, and a BSc in Geological Sciences from Oxford Brookes University.

I currently serve as the Chairman of the Geological Remote Sensing Group North America Chapter and sit on the Earth Observation sub-committee of the IOGP.

Currently, I am a professional certificate student in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations program and looking to update my programming and data analysis skills to support my professional development and interests in the applications of remote sensing to the energy and resource sectors.

Libby Ives

I am currently enrolled in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations program and am also a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee.

I have an M.S. in Geology from Iowa State University and a B.S. in Earth Science from Northern Michigan University. I am a clastic sedimentologist and geomorphologist, with expertise in glacial depositional environments, landscapes, and processes.

Though my research is primarily based in field observations, I am always interested in bringing more research tools to bear on any research problem. I have also worked outside academia for the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, the US Forest Service, and environmental non-profits. My goal in this program is to expand my knowledge of spatial analysis, coding, and modeling tools in the earth sciences.

In acquiring this new skill-set, my intention is to expand my career, research, and teaching opportunities. You can learn more about me and my work at my professional website.

Jennifer Kraft

I am a Professional Graduate Certificate student in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations Program. I have a BA in Linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, and an AA in Russian from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.

I’ve spent most of my career as a civil servant, which started with 6 years of service in the United States Air Force. Parallel to this, in my personal time, I became passionate about wildlife rescue and conservation educational outreach.

This led to starting a small non-profit organization, and later a campus project at UT Austin to teach students about native bat species and their role in the ecosystem. I recently started in a support and records management role with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) at the West Remote Sensing Lab in Portland, OR.

My responsibilities include managing a library of topographical maps and aerial photography, which are used in support of the annual National Resources Inventory. My goals are to continue to expand my skillset in order to advance in a government career protecting natural resources and native wildlife, but the potential to use what I learn in this program for personal projects or non-profit support is also a thrilling potential.

Lauren Kremer

I am a professional certificate student in CU Boulder’s Earth Analytics program and a research associate for the Watershed Hydrology Group at Colorado State University’s Natural Resource Ecology Lab.

I earned an M.S. degree in Conservation Ecology from New Mexico State University, where I studied aquatic ecology and the responses of communities in the stream benthos to severe wildfire in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, NM.

From this research, I developed an interest in Earth Science methods to better characterize stream catchments and understand stream responses to disturbance. Post-graduation, I participated in a NASA DEVELOP project where we applied remote sensing imagery to monitor vegetation recovery in Front Range watersheds affected some of Colorado’s most severe wildfires.

My current research aims to determine if remotely sensed watershed characteristics can be utilized as indicators or predictors of stream metabolism. With the guidance of this program, I aim to gain more skills and tools to effectively contribute to future projects that address current and pressing ecological challenges using methods practiced by industry scientists.

Nick Lamkey

I’m a geoscientist at the South Dakota Geological Survey. I work with several types of geospatial data, borehole data, and hydrological data to investigate water resources in South Dakota.

I have a B.S. in geoscience from the University of Iowa and an M.S. in geology from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. My current professional goals are to use python to improve data workflows and develop a more user-friendly LiDAR database.

Adam Mansur

I currently work as an informatics specialist in the Department of Mineral Sciences at the National Museum of Natural History, where I manage data about the rock, mineral, and meteorite collections. Bringing hundred-year-old data for hundreds of thousands of specimens up to modern standards is painstaking work, and I've used Python to help streamline the workflows my department uses to create and enhance that data.

My background prior to joining the museum was in geology, and I enrolled in the Earth Data Analytics program to improve my programming skills, especially in the areas of data analysis and GIS.

My goal is to use that knowledge to improve how my department understands and visualizes information about the collections.

Maeve McCormick

I graduated from Stanford University (2019) with a B.S. in Geological Sciences. While there, I completed an undergraduate honors thesis regarding the effects of soil moisture on soil CO2 respiration at small spatial and temporal scales, utilizing a combination of remote-sensing and field-based observations. As part of my work, I served as a field assistant for a National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) Airborne Observation Platform project with Dr. Dana Chadwick.

Additionally, I worked as a GIS assistant in the Branner Earth Sciences Library, cultivating skills in database management, ArcGIS and QGIS software, and R and Python programming. In order to continue developing a geospatial analytics skillset, I am currently enrolled in CU Boulder Earth Lab’s professional certificate program for Earth Data Analytics. Since graduating, I have been working as a research assistant with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, assisting Dr. Kelly Elder with an avalanche dendrochronology project and performing data QA/QC for the NASA SnowEx project.

These experiences have reinforced for me the value of applying geospatial tools and field-based study, and encourage me to continue learning and applying Earth analytics in future research endeavors (and hopefully, in the near future, as a graduate student!).

Mike Petrut

I am a current professional certificate student in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations program. Having worked in data analytics and consulting across the energy industry over the past five years, I have become immensely interested in spatial science and its applications, which started after coming across spatial packages such as Leaflet and Raster in R whilst undertaking a project modeling transport fuels demand in Australia.

During my professional career, I have worked on a wide diversity of energy analytics projects spanning from modeling and forecasting oil and LNG demand to developing cost-benefit models for the electricity and renewables sector. My professional development goal is to develop my knowledge and applicable skills in spatial data science and look for new ways to build capacity combining my existing knowledge of economics & econometrics with spatial sciences in my current job working as a Senior Economics Consultant.

I have a BA in Political Science and an MA in International Affairs, with the intention to pursue an MS in Applied Economics or Data Science in the Fall of 2021 after completing the Earth Data Analytics certificate.

Brian Pinke

I earned my B.S. degree in Geology and Environmental Science Minor from Lafayette College in Easton, PA. At Lafayette, I completed my Senior Honors Thesis on “Drainage Density as a Function of Lithology and Methodology in the Great Valley, Eastern PA, and Western NJ”. I also participated in several research projects: “Baseline Channel Characterization of the Lower Bushkill Creek in Easton, Pa, Prior to the Removal of Three Low-Head Dams” through the EXCEL Scholars program, “XRD Analysis of Mafic Sands from the Icelandic Interior: An Analogue Study for the Bagnold Dune Field of Mars” through the RUMBLE research group, and a “Synthesis of the Akaroa Volcanic Complex, NZ and Study of the Eruptive Faces of Sleepy Bay, Banks Peninsula, NZ” through the Frontiers Abroad Geology Field Program. After graduating in May 2019, I worked for the HAZMAT and AML program at the Reno, Nevada BLM and just completed 1 year of service for the AmeriCorps NJ Watershed Ambassador Program. Within this term of service, I conducted Biological and Habitat assessments of stream water quality, organized community service projects toward watershed stewardship (cleanups, tree plantings, rain barrel workshops, etc.), and presented to students and community groups on water, watersheds, and pollution. I am currently serving a second term with NJWAP and hope to apply what I have learned, along with newly acquired skills in Earth Data Analytics and Python towards my interests and career goals in Fluvial Geomorphology, Watershed Science, River Restoration, and Sustainability.

Korinna Rantz

I am a recent graduate from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies. Currently, I am seeking a professional graduate certificate in Earth Data Analytics-Foundations.

Growing up in a small ski town in Colorado influenced my love for nature and desire to preserve the environment. Throughout the years I have had the opportunity to travel around the world and live in many beautiful places while working in the tourism and hospitality industry.

I volunteer with the Arizona Trail Association to help protect, maintain, enhance, promote and sustain the Arizona Trail because I believe outdoor recreation is such an important way for people to be able to connect with the natural world. With my recent degree and future certificate, I am hoping to transition into a career addressing the use of natural resources and the impacts that humans have on them.

I currently reside in Tucson, Arizona, and hope that my new skills will help me explore opportunities with urban and regional planning, especially in a desert environment.

Merielle Redwine

I am a professional certificate student in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations program. I earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics from California State University, San Marcos.

I have worked on a few undergraduate research projects under the biology department where I studied population genetics using certain differential equations and other mathematical models. I also studied various ways to statistically visualize MRI data in Matlab.

I work in Moab, Utah where I give tourists basic information on local geology and tourism. My undergraduate interests included three-dimensional calculus, linear algebra, and statistical analysis methods that combine the two, such as principal component analysis.

My goals include enrolling in an M.S. or Ph.D. program where I can study data science geared towards earth science and hopefully climate change.

Camryn Sorg

I am a professional certificate student in the Earth Data Analytics Foundations program. I earned a B.S. in Environmental Policy & Planning from Virginia Tech.

Since then, I have worked primarily in the energy efficiency and renewable energy fields, including prior work as a contractor for the EPA, and my current role as a contractor for the Department of Energy.

In my current role, I support the management of federal R&D projects related to renewable energy, environmental impacts and ecosystem services, and energy analysis and modeling capabilities.

My professional goal for the certificate is to learn data analytics skills that could be used to inform technology and policy decisions, particularly related to climate and environmental issues.

Mitch Spooner

I graduated from The Australian National University with a Bachelor of Science (First Class Honors; 2001) and a Ph.D. in Marine Geology (2005). I have had a sustained earth science career with over twenty years of scientific research experience within government, private industry, and research organizations.

Projects of interest include the paleoceanography of warm surface currents and the linkages with the Australasian monsoon, coastal mapping of benthic environments, Carbon Capture and Storage, and geothermal exploration.

I currently work as a senior geologist building subsurface models and conduct uncertainty analysis and resource estimation for the company assets. My passion for geology is based on understanding past environments and climate change.

With the help of this graduate certificate, I would like to refocus on projects that mitigate climate change and/or its impacts. I am specifically interested in the multi-spectral applications of fire management especially after the catastrophic bushfire season that we had in Australia (2019-2020).

Mike Sutherland

I am currently a Senior Geospatial Analyst at Dewberry, a national professional services firm. I support various Lidar acquisition projects, in particular those mapping various coastal locations using topographic-bathymetric (“topo-bathy”) sensors.

I've spent my entire professional career in a variety of technical roles in the coastal/ocean mapping realm (both public and private sector), performing tasks spanning the entire data “life-cycle” from acquisition to product development to long term management and archival.

My goals in pursuing the Earth Data Analytics Certificate are to improve my programming proficiency, as well as learn new methods with which to analyze and interact with large datasets and extract meaningful information to support decision-makers.

2019-2020 Cohort

Kelsey Beckrich	I have received a double BA in Anthropology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from CU Boulder. I research hybridization and speciation within Colorado endemic species of Penstemon. I currently work for the Museum-Administration Department at CU as the primary caregiver for Dr. Erin Tripp’s living botanical collection of Acanthaceae. With my intersectional background in the natural sciences, I am interested in examining human-environmental interactions on a broad scale. For my capstone project, I am using geospatial analyses and machine learning to model sagebrush/shortgrass ecosystems at the Colorado Plains Experimental Range and in the Onaqui Mountains of Utah. In my spare time, I am a serial tinkerer and moonlights as a starving artist.	Final project: Can Remote Sensing Data Inform Sagebrush Conservation? blog
Mike Dorfman	I have a bachelor’s degree in Physics and am excited to gain additional hands-on experience with earth data analysis as an Earth Data Analytics Certificate student. I currently work as a Software Engineer on the Weather Solutions team at Verisk Analytics. I have a passion for weather, software engineering, and cloud computing. In my free time, you’ll find me exploring new outdoor areas and looking for mountains to climb. In my capstone project, I will be working with the National Snow and Ice Data Center on a comparison of a passive-microwave model of the marginal ice zone (MIZ) to an operational MIZ product generated by the U.S. National Ice Center.	Final project: Edge of Antarctica blog
Evan Gallagher	I am a Colorado native interested in the natural sciences such as biology and ecology. After graduating with a degree in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Colorado in 2020, I am now focusing my interests on the geospatial and data-centric parts of these sciences. By working with CU Boulder's Earth Lab, my main focus now is taking real-time nitrogen dioxide data, and creating a user-friendly application that can read the concentrations around them. I hope to continue my interests in the natural sciences with a newfound niche of geospatial data, and take these interests into my career wherever it leads.	Final project: How Do NOx Emissions Affect You? blog
Lauren Herwehe	I am the program manager for Earth Analytics Education at CU Boulder Earth Lab. Prior to Earth Lab, I worked as a GIS & Remote Sensing Specialist at a water conservation startup, researched water management in Tajikistan with a Fulbright grant, and in Brazil with a U.S. FLAS Fellowship, and worked in earth science policy at the American Geosciences Institute. I hold an M.A. in Geography from the University of Arizona and a B.S. in Geosciences and a B.A. in Geography from Penn State University. My professional and research interests include data-intensive education, geospatial analysis, water resource management, climate issues, and program and project management. For the Earth Analytics Applications course, I am working with the World Wildlife Fund to study how current and proposed dams impact protected areas globally.	Final project: A Big Dam Problem blog
Nicole Kaplan	I am a computational biologist with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) of the US Department of Agriculture. I have a Master of Science in Rangeland Ecosystem Science from Colorado State University. I started my career supervising teams to collect field research data from the Central Plains Experimental Range, an ARS USDA research site in the rangelands of eastern Colorado. During the off-season for field sampling, I learned how to manage data by taking classes in database design, human-computer interaction, qualitative research methods, and now scientific programming in the Earth Data Analytics professional certificate program. I am most interested in developing efficient workflows for managing and integrating field-based and sensor-based data and working with my colleagues to learn and apply new skills to make science more efficient, effective, open, and reproducible. I am interested in programmatically producing a series of visualizations of data to inform science-based rangeland management decisions within a collaborative experiment on the CPER that seeks to meet objectives for both agricultural production and conservation. My project will create an efficient workflow and present scientists and stakeholders with multiple plots and maps to support their collaborative decision-making.	Final project: Precipitation Maps for Ranchers blog
Cale Kochenour	I have a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Geographic Information Systems from Pennsylvania State University. I used object-based image analysis to map the alpine tundra on Mount Mansfield, Vermont for my Master’s capstone project. I have an intense interest in mountains and alpine environments and am interested in applying my GIS, remote sensing, and data science skills in these domains. I am always looking to expand my geospatial talent stack. My project in the Earth Analytics Applications course creates a Python package for connecting to and extracting data from the aWhere API. I am a mountain runner, and you can often find me at the Manitou Incline, Pikes Peak, and the high elevations in Rocky Mountain National Park.	Final project: aWherePy: Crop Smarter with Python blog
Anna Pavlenko	I am an Earth Analytic Certificate program continued education student from CU Boulder. After graduating from Siberian State University of Geosystems and Technologies with degrees in GIS/Remote Sensing and Urban Cadaster during my research in Post Graduate studies, I worked on a big project by using high-resolution satellite images from Digital Globe along with teaching graduate students at the same University. Recently, I worked with a professor from CU in Advance Geothermal Company on a project of creating ecologically clean geothermal energy sources in the US. I have a research interest in environmental science including studies of climate changes and ecological problems of our society by using modern technologies and last developed programming methods.	Final project: NO2 Prediction with Machine Learning blog
Drew Phillips	My personal and professional goal is to build digital capacity in the not-for-profit and humanitarian sectors. I have worked as a GIS analyst in the public and private sectors, focusing in particular on partnering with entities that have not yet made use of geospatial information systems. I earned a B.S. from the University of Rochester and a Master's in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan. My project for the Earth Analytics Application course involves tracking and characterizing drought by using agricultural indicators.	Final project: The "Where" of Dry: Spatiotemporal Tracking of Agricultural Droughts presentation
Kendall Rosenberg	I am currently a Field Geologist with the US Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District. I have a B.S. Degree in Geology with a minor in Marine Science from The College of William & Mary in Virginia. My research experience at William & Mary involved examining marine sediment cores from Prince William Sound, Alaska, to help build a better historical record of large earthquakes in the region. I have a special interest in flood prediction and management and hope to combine my field skills with data science techniques in the future to better predict and prepare for natural disasters. My current project for the Earth Analytics Application course involves using in-situ soil moisture data from across the US as a check on drought models that primarily use remote-sensed soil moisture values as an input.	Final project: Bringing In-Situ Soil Moisture Data to the Scientific Table blog
Robina Shaheen	I have a Ph.D. as an atmospheric chemist and savvy data scientist Stable Isotope Laboratory, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California. (https://github.com/shaheen19). I enjoy exploring the interactions of molecules in the air and how they continue their journey through different phases in the atmosphere-biosphere-hydrosphere and geosphere. I joined the University of Colorado, Boulder, Earth Lab’s Data Science program to learn satellite data processing using GIS and python tools and have joined the company of Open Science Scholars to make knowledge accessible to everyone and to encourage building upon the existing knowledge. I love teaching earth system science and chemistry. I encourage curiosity and novel ways of thinking in my students. I inspire them to think of nature as an open book exam, and with some unique blend of curiosity, perseverance, and detective insights, one can learn a lot from mother nature. My goal is to understand the impact of human activities on the earth’s natural cycles such as El-Nino Southern Oscillations. I believe, If we understand this complex dance between the atmosphere and hydrosphere, we can plan for a resilient future and mitigate disaster. I grew up with my grandparents whom I admire as my greatest teachers for encouraging curiosity and love for nature.	Final project: Wildfires in California: Causes and Consequences blog
Steph Shepherd	I am currently an Assistant Professor of Geosciences at Auburn University. I have a Ph.D. in Environmental Dynamics and an MS in Geology from the University of Arkansas. I trained as a fluvial geomorphologist with a specific interest in anthropogenic interactions with river systems. For the Earth Analytics Applications course, I am collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund to leverage existing data sets of free-flowing rivers and proposed dams to investigate potential impacts to protected areas around the globe (https://github.com/stephlshep/global-dam-impacts). I am also part of a research partnership between academic institutions, the USGS, and the National Park Service studying the relationship between lithology and valley formation in the Buffalo National Scenic River, Arkansas (http://buffalorivergeoscience.org/). Prior to my academic career, I worked as a park ranger for the National Park Service at several parks in the western U.S. and as a river guide on the San Juan and Colorado Rivers for an educational non-profit in Moab, UT. These days you are likely to find me exploring the woods near my home in Auburn, AL with my family.	Final project: A Big Dam Problem blog
Richard Udell	I am a geology enthusiast and energetic learner. I graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2018: BS Geology and Geophysics, BS Environmental Studies. In undergrad, I gained extensive geologic field mapping experience from the Wasatch Uinta Field Camp and other field mapping courses in Ontario, Texas, and throughout the glacially shaped landscape of Wisconsin. I also earned my alias “Richard Likes Rocks” by serving as a tour guide at the University of Wisconsin Geology Museum. I have worked one year as a Staff Geologist on large housing development construction projects in the Denver Metro Area. Now, Richard is focused on learning how to create maps. I believe that if a picture speaks a thousand words then a map speaks a million! My current project works with the Google Earth Engine Python API to identify development trends surrounding Denver International Airport from time-series Landsat Imagery with the aim of predicting future development. I am always curious and encourage anyone to connect to chat about my project, trail running, cross-country skiing, bike touring, or (especially) rocks! I currently live in Chicago, Illinois.

2018-2019 Cohort

Michael Levis

I intend to pursue a career acquiring and analyzing images (specifically from active and passive sensors mounted to UAVs) for the agricultural, energy, or real estate sectors. I received a BA in Economics and a minor in Geology from CU Boulder and have worked in the financial industry for over 20 years. I hope to leverage my financial experience with my new skills in data analytics. My capstone project for Earth Data Analytics professional certificate will focus on using machine learning and predictive models to automate the classification of thermal images for business and industry applications.

Final Project: Analysis of Thermal Imaging

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Katy Sill

earned a Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Environmental Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a B.S. degree in Biological Systems Engineering from the University of California at Davis. I have worked on water and sanitation projects domestically and internationally in my roles as an environmental consultant and as an AAAS Science and Technology Fellow and water advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development. For the professional certificate capstone project, I partnered with Cloud to Street and developed a Python-based methodology to differentiate building shadow from floodwaters in urban areas using high-resolution satellite imagery, object detection, and machine learning. My interests include utilizing remote sensing data to support decision making through improving the understanding of complex systems.

Final project:

Out of the Shadows (Flood Detection)

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Shannon White

In 2015 I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder with a Bachelor of Arts in Geography. Since then, I have been working in the travel industry specializing in luxury travel to Asia and the Pacific. I have been enrolled in the professional certificate program for earth data analytics which I will complete in the spring. My research interests are in earth sciences, but my focus this semester is on volcanology and the threats and risks it has towards expanding populations and communities. My goal is to emerge from the certificate program with a new career path in data analytics focusing on earth sciences and the varying phenomena associated with climate change.

Final project:

2018 Kilauea Eruption

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Ann Windnagel

I am currently a cryospheric sciences data curator and manager at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. I have had a diverse career spanning jobs from the numerical analyst of solar irradiance measurements, software programmer to process raw satellite data, science satellite flight controller, and technical science writer. This broad career experience has provided me with proficiency in documenting, processing, and analyzing data collected via cutting edge technologies to inform scientific advancement. I have a BS in Applied Math and Numerical Analysis from CU, Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science, and an MS in Informatics from Drexel University, Philadelphia College of Computing and Informatics.

My professional goals are to update my programming and data analysis skills so that I can continue to grow at NSIDC and broaden into cryospheric data analysis roles as well as my current data curator roles. My capstone project for the Earth Data Analytics professional certificate leverages a partnership with the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) at the University of Zurich in Switzerland to research and analyze global statistics about glaciers and glacial retreat due to climate change.

Final project:

Global Assessment of Glaciers

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Earth Data Analytics Certificate Cohorts

Meet Our Students & Explore Their Final Projects

2022-2023 Cohort

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