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.
Episode Sponsors: Radiant Earth Foundation & Element84
- Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.
About Emily
About Kim
Shownotes
Books & Podcast Recomendations:
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
Feel free to reach out!
