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- Gopika Suresh
Gopika Suresh
Report of GLOMAR PhD student Gopika Suresh about her research stay at the Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA from April – July 2014
During the months from April to July 2014, I conducted my research stay at the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the Florida State University (FSU), Tallahassee, with the working group of Prof. Dr. Ian MacDonald. Prof. MacDonald and his team work on hydrocarbon seeps, gas hydrates and mud volcanoes, especially in the Gulf of Mexico region and have conducted extensive research on the Deep water horizon oil spill. This, coupled with the existence of their oil slick detection algorithm, the Texture-classifying neural network algorithm (TCNNA), created by Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda, a member of Prof. MacDonald's team, created a perfect environment to present my research and draw from their expertise.
Working and interacting with Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda gave me the chance to learn more about the TCNNA and the various techniques he uses for the detection of oil slicks and estimation of seeps. The experience and expertise of Prof. MacDonald and his team regarding hydrocarbon seeps gave me a better insight about oil seepage mechanisms and the oceanographic setting of the Gulf of Mexico. The research stay at the FSU provided an opportunity to test my oil seep location estimation algorithm on a dataset of images from the Canadian Earth Observation Satellite, RADARSAT-1. Though the results still need be analysed in detail, I can already say that my algorithm works in accordance to the TCNNA, providing me with added confidence in the credibility of my PhD research. Comparing the results from the TCNNA and my algorithm will provide validation for my algorithm.
Since Tallahassee is so close to the Gulf of Mexico, and most of the researchers at the FSU work on data from there, there was a lot of interest in my PhD research. I was given the chance to present my work and the appreciation, interest and questions from the audience enhanced my confidence in my research. I was also requested to give a tutorial about programming in Python, which is the programming language on which my algorithm is based.
I can only say good things about my research stay at the FSU and at Tallahassee. Not only did I have the chance to work with an incredible team of researchers but I also got to meet fantastic people and explore Florida. I would like to thank GLOMAR for funding my research stay and I am forever grateful for this opportunity.
Working and interacting with Dr. Oscar Garcia-Pineda gave me the chance to learn more about the TCNNA and the various techniques he uses for the detection of oil slicks and estimation of seeps. The experience and expertise of Prof. MacDonald and his team regarding hydrocarbon seeps gave me a better insight about oil seepage mechanisms and the oceanographic setting of the Gulf of Mexico. The research stay at the FSU provided an opportunity to test my oil seep location estimation algorithm on a dataset of images from the Canadian Earth Observation Satellite, RADARSAT-1. Though the results still need be analysed in detail, I can already say that my algorithm works in accordance to the TCNNA, providing me with added confidence in the credibility of my PhD research. Comparing the results from the TCNNA and my algorithm will provide validation for my algorithm.
Since Tallahassee is so close to the Gulf of Mexico, and most of the researchers at the FSU work on data from there, there was a lot of interest in my PhD research. I was given the chance to present my work and the appreciation, interest and questions from the audience enhanced my confidence in my research. I was also requested to give a tutorial about programming in Python, which is the programming language on which my algorithm is based.
I can only say good things about my research stay at the FSU and at Tallahassee. Not only did I have the chance to work with an incredible team of researchers but I also got to meet fantastic people and explore Florida. I would like to thank GLOMAR for funding my research stay and I am forever grateful for this opportunity.
