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NASA DEVELOP and NCEI welcome Summer 2024 Interns

NCEI celebrates 10 years of collaboration with NASA DEVELOP as eight early career scientists work to address environmental challenges through spatial analysis

Sunset over Vermont’s Green Mountains near Woodstock, Vermont
Image Courtesy of Canva Photos

This summer, NCEI is proud to celebrate 10 years of collaboration with the NASA DEVELOP program. For the past decade, NCEI and NASA DEVELOP have worked together to offer hundreds of early career scientists a unique opportunity to work with the combined data and resources of both organizations. NCEI and NASA DEVELOP are proud to partner with the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) to support drought-focused projects each year since 2018.  

NASA DEVELOP welcomed eight young scientists this summer, who worked with NCEI-based scientists and data on two different climate and conservation-related projects based in North Carolina and Vermont. Since the program’s inception in 2014, each team has contributed to efforts like creating flood risk maps for Kentucky, analyzing agricultural trends in Brazil, water availability in the Sonoran Desert, and much more.

NCEI is proud to support NASA DEVELOP’s mission of “Cultivating Tomorrow’s Earth Observation Users” and we look forward to continuing to work alongside each other to provide aspiring scientists the chance to engage with real-world data and materials. 

Summer 2024 Project Collaborations

Asheville Urban Development II

Four interns worked in Asheville, North Carolina on a 10-week DEVELOP project titled “Asheville Urban Development II: Mapping Urban Heat to Support Cooling Initiatives and Climate Resilience Planning in the Greater Asheville Area.”

This project aims to address the exacerbation of heat exposure due to urban heat islands in Asheville, particularly impacting vulnerable communities. Common features of urban landscapes, such as dark pavement and sparse vegetation, lead to low albedo (the fraction of light that a surface reflects) and reduced evapotranspiration (the process by which water is transferred from the land to the atmosphere) causing temperatures to skyrocket. In partnership with the City of Asheville Sustainability Department and Asheville GreenWorks, the project identified urban heat islands by juxtaposing land surface temperature, albedo, evapotranspiration, and social vulnerability data to identify locations in Asheville most in need of heat mitigation measures. 

Vermont Wildland Fires

Four interns participated in the 10-week DEVELOP project titled “Vermont Wildland Fires: Investigating The Role of Antecedent Conditions and Recent Environmental Trends in Exacerbating Fire Risk and Potential in Vermont”. Working virtually, this project brought understanding to which environmental factors contribute to increased fire risk in Vermont. To investigate trends related to fire risk in the state, this project partnered with the National Weather Service (NWS) (Burlington, Vermont Weather Forecast Office), the Vermont Division of Forests, NOAA National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and the University of Vermont to examine links between antecedent conditions preceding fire events in Vermont, and trends in environmental parameters related to fire risk.

Meet the interns leading the Asheville Urban Development Project:
 
Kimberly Becerril

Kimberly graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Master in City Planning and a concentration on Environmental Planning and Policy. While at MIT, she worked at the City Form Lab, a spatial analytics research lab focused on understanding and advancing human-centric city design with sustainable mobility. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked as a geospatial analyst and cartographer in California at GreenInfo Network, the Bureau of Land Management (Central Coast Field Office, and Apple). For her undergraduate education, Kimberly majored in Physical Geography and double minored in Forestry and Natural Resources, and Geospatial Information Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Image of Kimberly Becerril.

Caleb Kluchman

Caleb is a Master’s student at Clark University in GIS with an undergraduate degree in Geography and Data Science. As an undergrad, Caleb researched the land surface characteristics (LSC) contributing to the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect in Worcester, MA using remote sensing. He focused on how LSCs relate to environmental justice (EJ) neighborhoods, aiming to quantify their impact on Land Surface Temperature (LST) and identify correlations with high-impact LSCs in EJ areas. His interest in UHI stemmed from participating in the Human-Environment Research Observatory (HERO) program, where he assessed urban tree growth over a 10-year period to determine optimal locations for future tree plantings and identify barriers to tree health. He is excited about integrating powerful data manipulation tools, such as machine learning, with large remotely sensed datasets. Caleb lives in Worcester, MA, and enjoys ceramics, reading, grilling, rock climbing, and petting dogs.

Image of Caleb Kluchman.

Caroline Tintinger

Caroline is a rising junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill double majoring in Geography (with a concentration in Political Ecology) and Environmental Studies, with a minor in Urban Planning and Studies. Caroline, originally from Seattle, lived in France for high school. She spent a semester at the UNC Institute for the Environment’s Field Site at the Highlands Biological Station, where she interned with the U.S. Forest Service as a fieldwork researcher, surveying disjunct stands of Red Spruce (Picea Rubens) to assess climate change impacts. She also worked as a research assistant studying microplastics in Southern Appalachian headwater streams, assessing biological, atmospheric, and hydrological connections. Additionally, she participated in a Collaborative Online International Learning research program examining the environmental justice and biodiversity impacts of Indonesia's capital relocation from Jakarta to Nusantara, Borneo. She loves outdoor activities, such as hiking, swimming in waterfalls, picnicking, and kayaking. She enjoys gardening, playing with her dog, reading, cooking and baking, and playing board games.

Image of Caroline Tintinger.

Sarah McMullen

Sarah earned a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Boston University in 2012 and a Bachelors of Environmental Science from University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2023. While completing her Environmental Science degree, she conducted interdisciplinary research on the impact of past land use practices on the herbaceous plant biodiversity of Southern North Carolina, and has since published her research in the UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Research and the Journal of Appalachian Studies. Since 2021, Sarah has been working for Wildlands Network in Asheville, researching the impacts of roads and the implementation of wildlife crossing structures on reptile biodiversity and habitat connectivity. Outside of work, Sarah spends time camping, organic gardening, drawing and painting the natural world, participating in two book clubs, and engaging in community-based activities.  

Image of Sarah McMullen.

Meet the interns leading the Vermont Wildland Forest project:
 
Aline Maybank

Aline is a second-year Master of Public student in Environmental Health Sciences with a concentration in Climate Change and Health at the Yale School of Public Health. She is from Canada and previously earned an Honors Bachelor of Science in Medical and Environmental Sciences from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Her research focuses on the nexus between air quality, wildfires, and community health outcomes, and she is passionate about addressing the root causes of climate-related diseases and environmental injustices. Aline is working for the Healthy Air Network, a non-profit ground-level air pollution monitoring network across the Northeast U.S. She has also contributed to academic research, assisting a wildfire smoke study at the University of Washington on a Fulbright Killam Fellowship, energy science research at Kyoto University as an Amgen Scholar, and environmental epidemiological studies on air quality and community health at Dalhousie University. Outside of scholastic pursuits, Aline teaches dance with Yale Danceworks, loves paddleboarding, and enjoys discovering new areas of the world.

Image of Aline Maybank.


Lucas Barr

Lucas graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in May 2024 with a Bachelors of Science in Environmental Science (Geographical Sciences) and a Bachelors of Arts in Government. His research focused on vegetation ecology and the carrying capacity of savanna habitats. This took him to Botswana where he conducted fieldwork and studied alternative methods for quantifying browsing capacity. His work is at the intersection of climate change, desertification, human-environment interactions, policy, and land management. Lucas is passionate about civic engagement and spent four years at TX Votes, first as a Communications Director, and then as Chair of Events. He hosted a German-language radio program for two years, and he has GIS experience monitoring vegetation health in the Kalahari Desert and studying transportation equity in Austin, TX. In his free time, Lucas enjoys cooking, traveling, nature photography, as well as making and performing music with his friends. 

Image of Lucas Barr.

Rebecca Economides

Rebecca, a Negaunee, MI resident, is currently pursuing an M.S. in Applied Meteorology at Mississippi State University. She earned her B.A. in Physics from St. Mary's College of Maryland in 2012, focusing her capstone project on 17th-century naval architecture and stability. Rebecca transitioned into the maritime industry, gaining extensive sailing experience across various oceans and serving roles from educator to skipper. She also spent seasons in Sweden training sled dogs for the Yukon Quest. In 2020, Rebecca left her Historic Ship Rigger position at the San Francisco National Historic Park to settle in Michigan, where she and her partner built a tiny house, which ignited her interest in climate-appropriate residential construction and energy efficiency. This inspired her pursuit of a Master's Degree in meteorology. During spring 2024 she volunteered with NOAA, aspiring to become an incident meteorologist with the NWS. In her free time, Rebecca enjoys outdoor pursuits such as running, swimming in Lake Superior, biking, skiing, gardening, and cooking. She also volunteers with her therapy dog and loves funk and bluegrass music.

Image of Rebecca Economides.

Isabela Suaza Sierra

Isabela is a first-year Ph.D. in Geological Sciences focusing on Hydrology and Climate Change at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). She completed a Master of Science in Geological Sciences with distinction from UTEP and a Bachelor's in Geological Engineering from Colombia’s Universidad Nacional, where she was born and raised. During her Master's studies, she conducted research on water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and water levels in lakes and reservoirs across the Red River Basin, as a Research Assistant in the GeoSense (Geospatial Sensing and Sampling of the Environment) Research Lab. Additionally, she conducted hydrological research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, during the summer of 2023. Isabela credits higher education with transforming her life and her family's, broadening her horizons to science, innovation, and the desire to generate transformation and positive change. She enjoys hiking, exploring new places, dancing Salsa and Bachata, reading, caring for her plants, working out, and relaxing.

Image of Isabela Suaza Sierra.

North Carolina Center Lead

Tallis Monteiro

Tallis is the Center Lead for the NASA DEVELOP National Program at NOAA/NCEI. She participated in two prior DEVELOP terms, researching health and air quality in the Pacific Northwest, followed by wetland declination in Colombia. Tallis earned an Interdisciplinary Studies degree from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, allowing her to combine her academic interests in Environmental Science, Human Rights, and International Studies. As an undergrad, Tallis published research that analyzed the long-term ethnoecological impacts of petroleum extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon. After college, Tallis worked at Asheville GreenWorks, a local environmental nonprofit, serving as their Environmental Educator and co-leading their Youth Environmental Leadership Program. This program engaged BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) youth through educational experiences, data collection, and service work centered on environmental justice. She enjoys event production, music, dance, gardening, community-building, bats, and ocelots. Tallis’s research interests include community-based environmental conservation, ecological monitoring, and bioacoustics.

Image of Tallis Monteiro.