Emily Darling & Kim Fisher - The Challenges of Mapping Coral Reefs When Satellites Can't See Them - #MBM 23

Emily Darling & Kim Fisher both work at the Wildlife Conservation Society, respectively as the Director of Coral Reef & as Spatial Analyst. They have developed MERMAID, a platform enabling coral reef scientists to aggregate & share their data together.  One of the main challenges they tackle being most measurements need to happen in the field as opposed to being able to leverage satellite imagery. 

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Episode Sponsors:

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
• Element84
  • Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast

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About Emily:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

About Kim:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

World Conservation Society

Shownotes

• MERMAID
• Wildlife Conservation Society
• Allen Coras Atlas
• SparkGeo
• Books & Podcast Recomendations:
  • We can do hard things
  • Where should we begin
  • Song Exploder
  • Data Feminism: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/data-feminism
  • Here GOES Radiotelescope
  • Mannahatta/Welikia:
    • book: https://www.amazon.com/Mannahatta-Natural-History-York-City/dp/1419707485/
    • website: https://welikia.org/

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction
• 03:07 - Kim & Emily presenting themselves
• 07:49 - Computer Science & Data at the service of Science
• 17:30 - A symbiotic relationship Software Engineering & Marine Biology
• 23:38 - High level overview of what MERMAID is
• 26:52 - What problem does MERMAID solve?
• 32:28 - Getting traction on a scientific tool
• 37:37 - Stories on top of the data
• 46:00 - Another simple question: Why is coral reef important?
• 49:55 - Working with Policy Makers
• 55:28 - Coral Reef is still measured with pen & paper
• 1:01:55 - Partnering with SparkGeo, a geospatial consultancy
• 1:10:54 - Thinking about projects over the long term
• 1:12:45 - Financing a Non-Profit project
• 1:19:40 - Transparency in Non-Profits through Open-Source
• 1:25:45 - The impact of Data Science on Emily’s work
• 1:29:01 - Book & Podcast Recommendations

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