GLOBE Student Interns Recognized for AGU Scientific Presentations

Two GLOBE students were recently recognized by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) with an Outstanding Student Award for work presented at the Fall AGU Meeting. Prachi A. Ingle, a freshman at the University of Texas, Austin, and high school student Matteo Kimura, were named winners for their oral presentation and poster, "Creating open-source automated data cleaning and flagging procedures: Examples from the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper and Land Cover datasets.”

Their work automated data preprocessing and quality assurance Python procedures that will assist scientists in accessing research-quality citizen science data for use in their research. The award was one of 25 student poster awards, with one award given per AGU section. Ingle and Kimura were recognized as the winner in the Earth and Space Science Informatics section. 

Matteo Kimura and Prachi A. Ingle collaborating on their GLOBE research. 

Presenting at the AGU Fall meeting was an amazing experience, says Ingle. “I learned how to create and present a compelling research poster, and most importantly, how to actively participate in a scientific conversation constructively. Speaking with other experts in our field was an incredible learning opportunity. Our discussions helped me better contextualize our own work in the overall field of Earth and space science informatics.”

The American Geophysical Union Outstanding Student Presentation Awards (AGU OSPA) are awarded for promoting, recognizing, and rewarding undergraduate, Master’s, and Ph.D. students for quality research in Earth and space science and the ability to effectively communicate it. AGU Sections recruit judges to assess and score the presentations of students who have opted to participate in the program. 

Ingle and Kimura completed this project as part of a data internship with the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), a follow-on internship to their participation as part of the Mosquito Mappers Team, NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) summer high school research internship.

“The internship was incredibly rewarding in terms of the skills, knowledge, and experiences that I gained while also inspiring me to want to contribute more to the growing field of citizen science,” says Kimura.

In addition to doing his own research, Kimura served a peer mentor for the 2021 Earth Explorers SEES cohort. Ninety-seven SEES student interns collected data using The GLOBE Program’s GLOBE Observer mobile app and analyzed GLOBE data as they explored research questions related to land cover and mosquito habitats. Under the supervision of NASA Subject Matter Experts Russanne Low, Peder Nelson, Erika Podest, and GLOBE Mission Mosquito Campaign Lead Cassie Soeffing, these students completed eight individual projects and 20 team projects. Of these, 16 teams and seven individuals were accepted to present posters at the AGU Fall Meeting as part of the Bright Students Training as Research Scientists (Bright STaRS) program. Each year, Bright STaRS provides about 100 students in grades 6-12 the opportunity to present at a professional, scientific conference, interact with scientists, and learn about education, research, and career opportunities in the Earth and space sciences.

All 28 SEES student research projects were also submitted to The GLOBE Program’s 2022 International Virtual Science Symposium (IVSS). “By submitting their GLOBE research to the IVSS, the students get to share their information with other GLOBE students around the world -- opening doors for international collaboration with other students,” says mentor Cassie Soeffing.

The SEES research experience with GLOBE has been life-changing for many students. “Through NASA SEES and other research experiences with Rusty and Peder, I realized just how crucial computer science is to designing impactful solutions to real-world problems,” says Ingle. “This program inspired me to pursue [computer science] in college, so I can learn the skills necessary to help innovate new solutions.”

Kimura adds, “Before the start of SEES, I was unaware of citizen science. After all these experiences and working with the data that citizen scientists have collected, I truly believe in the power of citizen science. The fact that we as a global community can come together to collect data at a scale previously unimaginable, bolstering the advancement of human knowledge while inspiring and engaging people in science, is truly beautiful, and it is something that I hope to help grow and further develop.”

SEES students presented the following at in a SEES student symposium. Many presented the same work at the Fall AGU meeting and/or submitted the work to the GLOBE IVSS.

“Creating Open-Source Automated Data Cleaning and Flagging Procedures: Examples from the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper and Land Cover Datasets,” by Ingle, P., Kimura, M., Clark, A., Nelson, P., & Low, R.

“A Novel Method to Assess Environmental Impact of Wildfires on Land Cover,” by Alissa Sherbatov, Evan Hsiang, Cassie Kilburn, Joseph Ortiz, Benjamin Koppe

“Leveraging Expert Analysis to Remove Duplicates in GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Data,” by Mireya Galvan, Kevin Balagtas, Isabella Levine, Lauren Farrar, Jose Hidalgo, Kavita Kar, Vishnu Rajasekhar, Faguni Gupta

“Exploring the Feasibility of Mosquito Count Automation Through ImageJ,” by Nathaniel Boateng, Ashwin Roperia, Prayag Sreenivasan, Logan Sandell, Daniela Cabrales, Micaela Geborkoff, Foluso Osoba

“Investigating Mosquito Habitat Preferences for Tree Canopy or Building Shade in Urban Environments,” by Alex Dziaba, Simoni Khare, Arnav Deol, Priyanka Sadagopan, Megha Sharma, Moho Goswami, Sarah Park, John Simkin

“A Hutchinson-Based Approach to Mosquito Modeling: Predicting Mosquito Threat with Machine Learning and Edge Computing,” by Shyam Polineni, Avi Bagchi, Govind Gnanakumar, Om Shastri, Sujay Rasamsetti, Gianna Yan, Spencer Burke

“Analyzing Demographic Trends and Their Influence on Mosquito Source-Reduction,” by Bill Lam, Sylvie Wurmser, Coco Nate, Amalia Nevarez, Hannah Clay, Smriti Jasti, Imron Bouley

“Predicting and Analyzing Mosquito Danger Days,” by Gwynlyn Hannah

“Factors for Trap Effectiveness The Impact of Bait and Water Levels on Attracting Mosquitoes,” by Joshua Sundet

“Analyzing Local Land Cover Using Surrounding Data,” by Yuvraj Sahu

“Developing a Conceptual model to Forecast Mosquito Outbreaks,” by William Li, Chris Ho, Asheoluwa Ajala

“Predicting West Nile Virus Mosquito Positivity Rates and Abundance: A Comparative Evaluation of Machine Learning Methods for Epidemiological Applications,” by Julianna Scheider,  Alessandro Greco, Jillian Chang, Maria Molchanova, Luke Shao

“Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Identify Anopheles and Non-Anopheles Mosquito Larvae,” by Kellen Meymarian, Spencer Burke, Hannah Slocum, Jocelyn Browning, Amyn Macknojia

“A Machine Learning Approach to the Study of Dengue Virus Outbreaks in Rio De Janeiro Over Time,” by Aseel Rawashdeh, Aria Argus, Ria Jain, Denia Mittelman

“A Study of Environmental Conditions associated with the 2015 Dengue Outbreak in Southeast Brazil,” by Prayag Sreenivasan

“The Effect of Natural Bait Type on Mosquito Oviposition in Central Virginia,” by Paxton Calder

“Novel Approach to Autonomous Mosquito Habitat Detection using Satellite Imagery and Convolutional Neural Networks for Disease Risk Mapping,” by Sriram Elango, Nandini Ramachandran

“Comparing SPR and Fluorescent contrast methods in biochemical waveguide sensors using SEES GLOBE data,” by Anna Ager, Nicole Schmidt, Michelle Eno, Justin Lan, Andrew Kim, Corbin Adkins, Benito Esposti

“Modeling Effects of Temperature, Precipitation, and Vegetation on West Nile Virus Outbreaks Across the US,” by Aarush Gupta, Sadhana Kumar, Evan Shepherd

“Comparing Rural and Suburban Ae. Albopictus Reproduction in Puerto Rico,” by Samantha Nunez, Gabriel Cardenas

“Mosquito Habitat Research,” by Dallas Balentine

“Exploring Various Environmental Aspects and Determining Their Impact on Mosquito Populations for Eco-friendly Solutions,” by Avery Abramson,  Sanjana Anand, Paige Bowman, Isabella Erfort, Aksh Iyer, Vishruth Konakanchi, Virginia Ogburn, Haran Tekle

“Mosquito Attraction Research,” by Dominic Lampo, Eitan Benzaquen, Andrew Quintana, Karim Elyoussef, Ethan Arroyo

“Investigating the Relationship Between Urbanization and Mosquito Hotspots,” by Ashika Srivastava, Uma Desai, Agnes Koury

“The Effect of the Properties of Water Sources on Mosquito Attraction in Texas,” by Louis Geer

“An Analysis of the Effect of Land Cover Type on Mosquito Populations,” by Amehja Williams, Aminata Kamara, Garima Bansal, Grace Tilley, Nico Bers

“The Validity of Citizen Science,” by Steve Garcia 

“A Theoretical Research On Mosquito Behavior And Decisions In Different Aspects,” by Mia Lagunas and Daniela Lopez

“Examining environmental and structural impact on land cover,” by Alissa Sherbatov, Cassie Kilburn, Evan Hsiang, Joseph Ortiz, Benjamin Koppe

“Identifying Anopheles Larvae using a Convolutional Neural Network,” by Juan Durante, Christopher Grizzaffi, Spencer Burke, Amyn Macknoja

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