GIS Developer - MA, Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder
Inquisitive Individual with Three Specialties
This website is dedicated to a summary of my work over the years.
Geography
Space, Place, and Time
Data Science
Programming and Syntax
Physics
Matter, Energy, and Force
I graduated from Chaffey Community College in Rancho Cucamonga where I played water polo and earned a specialized AA called Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC). I spent 3 years at UCSB and graduated in 2020
with a double major in Geography and Physics. My Geography degree came with a specialization in GIS, and I wanted to further pursue it at the highest level. In 2021, I was accepted into the Geography department at CU, Boulder as a
Master's student under Dr. Guofeng Cao at STARlab. From there, I began to further develop my research skills and contribute to ongoing projects in the field of GIS and spatial analysis.
Now that I've graduated, I am seeking opportunities to apply my knowledge and skills in a professional setting. Overall, I'd summarize my experience as a multidisciplinary scholar with a strong foundation in Geography, Data Science, and Physics.
Skills and Experience
Programming is like playing with Legos...
...but the instructions are often unclear
and each lego piece must be handmade.
I've been fortunate enough to be apart of many research projects over the last decade that require many different types of lego bricks. There are many freely avaliable sources to help you and I build these.
My understanding of them is rather...basic, as I believe all coding was meant to be. The more complex the topic, the more I rely on these resources to determine advanced techniques, and better explain how they work.
I thought I'd narrow down some helpful tutorials and resources for the three programming languages I use most often. These are not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point for anyone interested in learning more about programming and data science.
Java
Object-Oriented Programming
Applications, Webkits, and GUIs
Python
Data Science and Automation
The premier machine learning language
R
The Statistician's Language
Easy, intuitive, and optimized for statistics
My thesis focused on surface ozone modeling. Using Google Earth Engine, EPA Air Quality Data, GitHub, and Python, I started the skeleton of an ML air pollution
model with geospatially corrected residuals trained on monitoring locations. The motivation for this can be seen in my early research projects and posters before I
started graduate school. Overall, I utilize a variety of programs to conduct spatial-temporal analyses in many disciplines:
Accomplishments and Interests
Blogs, Programs and Additional Works
Multi-Disiplinary Research
A World of Infinite Possibilities
As I began developing a passion for GIS programming, I faced significant challenges with my physical and mental health, which led me to extend my graduate studies by two years to focus on recovery and growth. With several awarded funding opportunities, I was able to continue expanding my thesis and multidisciplinary skill set. During this time, I collaborated with prominent researchers who helped refine my technical and analytical abilities.
I had the pleasure of working with NC CASC as a CEST member to research a topographic signature of life. I wrote blog detailing it's
importance and furture directions. This was part of a program called the Climate Adaptation Scientists of Tomorrow which funded my
final semester at CU.
The FIRe Event Delineation tool (FIREDPY) created by Earth Lab at CU. I was briefly apart of some summer work that fixed some edge-case
issues on the program. It's classifies individual burn detections into discrete events for further analysis (Balch et. al., 2020).
This will take you to an excerpt from my thesis. I only included the first two chapters, and then summarized the rest. These maps are meant to
expedite the speed of and reliability of orthorectified satellite imagery. After focusing on the machine learning and geostatistical applications
of my work, I hope to apply my findings to more human centric research.
A potential biosignature is a substance or structure that might have a biological origin but requires
more data or further study before reaching a conclusion about the absence or presence of life. Do they
exist? If so, can we detect them in the topographic scape of Earth?
As my network and social life grows, I hope to expand this map with more international points. Most of the road trips I've taken have been
across the contiguous US with my Grandparents. Some of my favorite places and future destinations are on it as well!