Corey Goodrich

Regardless of the topic–kpop, Machine Learning, a new movie, etc–a conversation with Felicia Nurindrawati, TCarta’s Machine Learning Engineer, will include questions, asking questions, answering questions and asking more questions. Ever since I began working with Felicia more than 2 years ago, I have enjoyed and benefited from her innate curiosity.

In using machine learning to solve problems at TCarta, Felicia naturally takes an inquisitive stance, gravitating towards posing questions to better understand the problem and formulating tests as part of her process. Another element of Felicia’s talent that she does not reveal in her Q&A is that she is a highly visual individual, who deploys diagrams to make sense of her work for herself and others every day.

I hope you’ll read on through the answers below, so you can appreciate the fun, light-hearted and innovative aspects of Felicia’s personality:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: I grew up watching Ultraman. It’s about a giant alien saving the earth from alien invaders. The main character said, “Why are humans so adamant in going up to space when they barely know what’s down there beneath the earth?” That somehow made me want to be some sort of earth scientist.

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I get data and do fancy machine learning stuff to get more data.

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta?

A: I graduated right in the beginning of the pandemic and found a job opening from LinkedIn for a machine learning engineer position, and is specifically computer-vision related. I wasn’t too confident because I didn’t know much about bathymetry, but my graduate thesis was pretty much aligned with the job requirements and it sounded cool. 

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: I love how I have the freedom and flexibility to try different innovations for solving technical problems!

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: ArcGIS PRO for now

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: I subscribe to medium.com newsletter to get the latest info for various technical topics of interest. Sometimes I get inspiration for new developments from it!

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Listening to kpop, and soccer documentaries, drawing digital art

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: Florida

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: ICESat-2 bathymetry…it’s beautiful when you use the right symbology!

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: BTS. I look at them everyday before going to work for a boost of energy!

Q: What is your favorite item in your office desk?

A: The cute mug coaster that I drew by myself. I want to make another one next time!

Previous Hydrospatial Spotlight: Audrey Rager

Next Hydrospatial Spotlight: Corey Goodrich

Michaela Barnes is the newest member of TCarta’s hydrospatial team. She joined us earlier this month with a nearly two-week stint in the Denver office, though she will typically be joining us remotely from her home in St. John’s. Michaela jumped fully into production in her first days here, demonstrating her experience and background in data production, QAQC, and team management. Working on two project deadlines in her first weeks at TCarta was an ideal opportunity for TCarta to understand Michaela’s skills and for her to learn about the Company.

As we move towards Michaela’s second month at TCarta, she will be building her remote sensing muscles with Satellite Derived Bathymetry production, post-processing, and data analysis methods and tools. And, TCarta will certainly continue to integrate and learn from Michaela’s past experience, as well! I invite you to learn more about Michaela from her responses to our Staff Q&A:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: A teacher.

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I map the ocean floor using satellite images.

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta?

A: After working on boats for 4 years, I decided to move into the space-based approach of ocean mapping.

Q: How did you become interested in this field? 

A: I became interested in ocean technology by competing in the MATE ROV competition in secondary school.

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: I love peeling back the layer of ocean to view what’s hiding underneath. It’s incredible to think about the mountain ranges, valleys, and other features that are never seen by human eyes!

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: The Journal of Ocean Technology

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Spin Class!

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: Alaska

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: Maria Tharp

Previous Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Chris Ilori

Next Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Audrey Rager

Hydrospatial Spotlight shines on Dr. Christopher Ilori, Senior Geospatial Scientist, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Ilori mixes passion for remote sensing with humor and enthusiasm for a good challenge!

Chris Ilori, PhD is a subject matter expert in atmospheric correction and satellite derived bathymetry (SDB) as you can see by a quick glimpse at his Google scholar page. As he has dedicated so much of his professional life to the research of satellite-based marine remote sensing and since Chris has a very sunny personality, he often tells jokes about SDB. For example, recently he told a group of us that if a remote sensing analyst spent 100 years producing SDB, 90 of those years would be spent on Atmospheric Correction. –This is now a common line on our team!

Since Chris has been with TCarta, he has collaborated with our staff to develop more robust radiative transfer methods for SDB and other machine learning approaches, such as the Random Forest method.  He typically contributes his expertise to more challenging regions or images and reliably brings a very positive attitude to these challenges. Chris has also facilitated internal capacity building on atmospheric correction, other imagery processing techniques, SDB and Marine remote sensing in general…always with a little extra joie de vivire (Chris speaks french, too!).  

I invite you to learn more about Chris from his responses to our Staff Q&A:

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I tell people I use satellite data to analyse and reveal changes about our (physical) environment.

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta?

A: My PhD advisor told me about TCarta and recommended me to the company. In 2018, I was hired by TCarta to come and work on physics-based satellite derived bathymetry, which happened to be my primary research focus in graduate school.

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: I love the idea of using models to derive stunning images/maps of water depth estimates from satellite imagery.

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: Python

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: Intercomparison of shallow water bathymetry, hydro-optics, and benthos mapping techniques in Australian and Caribbean coastal environments. Dekker et al 2012.

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: Production of bathymetry maps for intelligence and safety navigation in nearshore waters.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Piano playing.

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: Japan

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: Maps of water depth and coral reefs.

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: Anders Knudby, PhD (Partner in TCarta Canada)

Previous Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Ross Smith

Next Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Michaela Barnes

Interviewing and hiring Ross Smith was one of the first things I did after I joined TCarta in the spring of 2017. In the first weeks of working in the same office, I grew very fond of Ross’ sound effects while working. And still now, at least daily, there will be an intriguing “Aha” or “Ahhhhh” or “Hmm”–the kinds of noises that signal discovery or curiosity. On top of taking up hard Geospatial or Remote Sensing problems with enthusiasm and teaching himself many solutions, Ross is someone that teammates often turn to for support.

TCarta ran a monthly award in 2021, called the “Wookie Award,” in honor of Karl Lalonde, who was a very important part of TCarta until he passed away in 2020. Almost every single month, Ross received at least one nomination for the award, because his peers found his support and technical insight so valuable. 

It has been a pleasure to get to know Ross more, as he and I are now halfway through our 6th year at TCarta. I hope you get a chance to meet him at a conference one day, or to watch his GISCafe Interview, or learn more about him from his responses to our Staff Q&A:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: I had absolutely no idea. Maybe a goat farmer.

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I usually say that I map the seafloor from space- sometimes I leave it as simple as “I make maps.”

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta?

A: I went to my interview with the collar of my suit-jacket “popped”. I didn’t notice until I got home, and was mortified until I learned later it was taken to be some sort of bold interview power move — ha!

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: Every day I learn something new, get to tackle a challenge, and work with some brilliant minds to achieve great things!

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: My weapon of choice is Python– we rely on it for processing massive volumes of data, with some fairly innovative techniques to increase throughput. I am constantly utilizing Esri’s ArcGIS Pro, as well. 

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: READ. THE. DOCUMENTATION. For any tool, software, python library, etc. You would be surprised how many issues are already documented, if you know where to look and take the time to do so.

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: I believe that our contributions to Seabed 2030 are the most impactful, though I do appreciate the value of the data we have produced for hydrographic offices as well.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Music!

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: I would love to return to Iceland, or visit Norway.

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: The first time we extracted and visualized bathymetry from the ICESat-2 ATLAS sensor back in late 2018 / early 2019, as a part of the Early Adopter program. When we were able to resolve depths down to 40m after only a couple months of work, I knew we were onto something!

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: My late co-worker Karl Lalonde provided me with an immense amount of guidance towards becoming a far better geospatial developer and scientist.

Previous Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Natalie Treadwell

Next Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Chris Ilori

Hydrospatial Spotlight shines on Carol Fisher, TCarta Caribe Partner & MACHC Regional Consultant (#9 in a series of 14)

Fisher envisions capacity building for Caribbean colleagues

Carol Fisher met Kyle Goodrich at a Meso American-Caribbean Sea Hydrographic Commission (MACHC) meeting in 2018 in the Dominican Republic (https://www.iho-machc.org/). After watching his presentation on Satellite Derived Bathymetry (SDB), Carol approached TCarta about the role of SDB technology in the Caribbean region. As a member of the hydrographic team at the National Land Agency in Jamaica, Carol knew firsthand the challenges faced by those charged with keeping up-to-date surveys of their island nation’s waters. Carol often speaks of the game-changing nature of SDB, and she has been pivotal in organizing capacity building efforts in the MACHC region.

Carol wants to be part of getting SDB in the hands of Caribbean hydrographers, because she knows that the capacity to produce SDB will enable her contemporaries to meet their surveying requirements more fully and more efficiently; she also wants to see SDB used to help address environmental concerns in the region, which is a passion and professional goal of hers.

Learn more about Carol’s passion for her work by reading her responses to the Staff Q & A:

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I tell them I’m a Marine Detective!

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: Using science to provide accurate and reliable data in the marine environment to our clients

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: Hydro International

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: Our data being used for marine protection and conservation.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Listening to inspirational podcast and exercise

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: I want to travel to Africa and Europe.

Previous Hydrospatial Spotlight: Bindi Dave

Next Hydrospatial Spotlight: Alec Biles

Natalie joined TCarta’s team this spring as a part-time member of the NOAA SBIR Phase II Grant program focusing on Satellite-based solutions for Alaska and the Arctic. Her passion for her home state of Alaska and for GIS, mapping and Esri tools are a wonderful match for TCarta’s mission, vision and strategic plan and for the environmental challenges at play in these regions and around the world. Now a full-time satellite derived bathymetrist for TCarta with a specialization in Alaska, Natalie represented TCarta just last month at the 2022 Alaska Coastal and Ocean Mapping Summit.

Learn more about Natalie from her responses to our Staff Q&A:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: A marine biologist focused in bioluminescence!

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: TCarta is a mapping company that focuses on nearshore coastal waters using remote sensing techniques. Most days I am working on Satellite Derived Bathymetry, which is a process where you can determine the depths of the seafloor along the coastline using satellite LiDAR and Imagery. If they are at all curious, I then explain by saying – think about the pixels in an image – if we know the depth in red pixels is five meters and the depths in the green pixels is seven, then we can assume that the depth in the yellow pixels is 6 meters. If they are not familiar with LiDAR and it’s a friendly interaction, I introduce it as a giant space cat with laser eyes that can tell the height of things by bouncing the lasers off of the earth! 

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta?

A: I watched a presentation that a former TCartan gave at an Esri conference when I was doing research for my thesis. I remember sharing with a few people close to me that TCarta is doing something really cool and I should try to work with them after I finished school! 

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: It feels like I get to hop around the world every day! I am discovering the world’s oceans every day – and am often the first person to conduct SDB in those regions! I am a modern day explorer – discovering old places with new technology!

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: The Trident Tools are my bread and butter – but if I had to pick a favorite script – it would be the irregular composite script that can combine several images with irregular overlap. It’s always a joy seeing how the input images blend together and I enjoy refining the composites to find the best image for SDB! 

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: The remote sensing journal is top notch!

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: I feel that our work becomes as ‘real-world’ as it gets when clients like Seabed 2030 use the data we produced in the Seychelles and Saya De Malha for navigation and for planning their charting efforts.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Backcountry skiing! 

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: I would like to spend more time exploring Iceland and Greenland!

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: Using the pure file magic software (https://pfmabe.software/), it’s really amazing to see our seafloor models in a 3D point cloud. 

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: My favorite contemporary cartographer is John Nelson, an ESRI basemap engineer who spends his free time making artistic maps and youtube tutorials of creative things that can be done with GIS.  I also am inspired by Kate Berg, a GIS officer for the State of Michigan who runs Pokateo_ a GIS based meme account. In the SDB world, I have looked up to Chris Ilori since I began my research into SDB and I find it so cool that we are co-workers now!

Before joining TCarta, Natalie was Esri Innovation Program’s 2022 Student of the Year! We are fortunate to have Natalie join our team every day from Alaska, bringing her passion for geospatial, hydrospatial and remote sensing to modern-day environmental issues.

Other recent resources Natalie has shared with TCarta’s team:

Esri StoryMap Documentation of Typhoon Merbok created by the Alaska Geospatial Office

Esri StoryMap on Seascape: A regional mapping campaign in support of the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the U.S. EEZ

Alaska Coastal Mapping Strategy

Previous Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Graeme Timmeney

Next Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Ross Smith

Hydrospatialist Spotlight shines on Graeme Timmeney, Satellite Derived Bathymetrist and Sargassum Enthusiast

Many people refer to this time of year as the “Season of Light.” I know I cherish the festive lights on houses and streets and am drawn to things with a little extra dose of humanity or heart to get me through the colder, darker days of the winter season. And, every day–rain or shine–I am buoyed by my interactions with TCarta’s diverse, talented, and fun-loving team, so I want to share that light with you over the coming weeks.

TCarta’s team numbers 14 right now, spread west to east from Anchorage, to Vancouver, the main office in Denver, Mascouche, Canada, Kingston, Jamaica, and most recently to St.Johns, Newfoundland. The first hydrospatialist spotlight shines on Graeme Timmeney, Satellite Derived Bathymetrist, and one of the newest additions to TCarta’s remote sensing team.

Graeme’s going to tell you about himself, via a series of Q & A:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: Jacques Cousteau

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: I use satellites to study underwater habitats in coastal areas.

Q: Tell me something about how you came to work at TCarta.

A: I found TCarta after finishing my thesis research in 2020.

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: Visualizing the ocean from a desk in Denver.

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: ArcPro

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, Wang et al (2019)

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: Developing a better understanding of coastal areas across the globe that have not been mapped or studied in hundreds of years.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Skiing, live music

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: Basque Region of Spain

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: Visualizations of coral reef heads in varying states of decay in seafloor classification.

Q: Who inspires you or is a professional role model of yours?

A: My dad!

TCarta is fortunate to have Graeme join our Remote Sensing team here in Denver! Thanks, Graeme, for telling us a bit about yourself and your work. Next up in the Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Natalie Treadwell, Satellite Derived Bathymetrist from Anchorage, Alaska!

Blog author: Corey Goodrich, Managing Partner, TCarta

Next Hydrospatialist Spotlight: Natalie Treadwell

Senior Remote Sensing Scientist, Mascouche, Canada

Dr. Dave’s love for a good challenge brings advancements in SAR to TCarta (#8 in a series of 14)

A fairly new member of TCarta, Bindi brings her background in remote sensing, image processing and GIS to her work with SAR and Satellite imagery and various GIS workflows. In addition to years of expertise, Bindi brings passion for problem solving and a deep drive to learn new things. From distant Mascouche, Bindi lends focus and thoughtfulness to meetings and collaboration.

Learn more about Bindi’s passion for her work by reading her responses to the Staff Q & A:

Q: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A: As a kid I was fascinated by becoming a chef and health nutritionist.

Q: How do you describe your professional role to people who don’t know anything about it?

A: Then & very much now, I tell people that “the cameras & filters we use to click our pictures and make us look our best in daily lives are upgraded a bit more scientifically, instead of mobile phones as platforms-satellites carry these cameras and picture all parts of the earth (land, water, air) and space too, allowing to see, study and analyze it (for some specific problem solving).

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: Something challenging and new everyday to feed my mind and soul (exploring the unexplored in the hydrology realm);Trust + empowerment from leaders & peers  

Q: What software or tool makes the most difference in your day-to-day assignments?

A: Definitely Monday.com for organization, ENVI+Sarscape for image processing (specially SAR) & undoubtedly Arcpro for visualization.

Q: What industry or subject-matter resource or publication do you recommend?

A: I highly recommend IEEE-GRSS publications for various new research in Geosciences and thematic applications, including hydrology.

Q: What is the most relevant real-world application of TCarta’s and/or your work?

A: SDB fascinates me, and how important it is to 

safe navigation and infrastructure development in the Marine environment.

Q: What’s your current favorite hobby / past-time?

A: Literally gazing away as the snow falls and blankets the bare trees and ground, along with sipping a hot cup of indian chai…. 

Q: What country or region do you hope to explore next in travel?

A: Definitely Caribbean…..

Q: What is one of the coolest things you’ve seen or visualized in your work at TCarta?

A: At this point, definitely the inter-tidal differences between the high and low tide levels, and signatures of Sargassum floats & bioslicks in a SAR image. Super exciting…

Previous Hydrospatial Spotlight: Felicia Nurindrawati

Next Hydrospatial Spotlight: Carol Fisher