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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

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

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

Audrey’s answer to what she wanted to be when she grew up sums up her personality quite nicely!–She is an individual with diverse and unique interests.  She is passionate about geology and remote sensing, and she is evidently equally passionate about music!  It doesn’t stop there, though, Audrey is also a masterful cook, always learning new recipes and methods. It also becomes very clear upon getting to know Audrey, that she is the cornerstone of her family, across generations.

Here at TCarta, besides benefitting from her baking trials and her beautiful singing voice, Audrey is the lead on Seafloor Classification and has also produced Satellite Derived Bathymetry in many challenging areas. The team learns from her inquisitive nature, positive approach to technical challenges, and her attention to detail.  Just recently, Audrey collaborated with a developer on the TCarta team to construct a training data tool that would enable internal classification workflows to accelerate significantly.  I invite you to learn more about Audrey 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 Scientist and a Rock Star.

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

A: I map the seafloor with light.

Q: What do you love about your work?

A: I learn something every day.  I get to work with nice, amazing, smart people making products that can help make the world a better place.

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

A: Recently, a tool for automating the image classification process developed by Tony Wang.

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

A: Remote Sensing of Environment

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

A: Playing the bass and singing

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

A: New Zealand

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

A: Jack Dangermond and my Ph.D. Advisor, Eugene Smith

Previous Hydrospatial Spotlight: Michaela Barnes

Next Hydrospatial Spotlight: Felicia Nurindrawati

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