Graduate Jesse Alexander, who works in a role combining science communication and technical computing in the Center for Environmental Data Analysis, completed a three-month interdisciplinary research placement to improve predictions of bushfires in Scotland.
Jesse worked with Dr. Ioana Colfescu, a climate data scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Science and the University of St. Andrews, to use machine learning techniques and wildfire prediction models.
We spoke to Jesse about his placement.
What was the placement about?
“My role involves researching, modeling and predicting bushfires in Scotland using machine learning models. Scotland is not a country that is often associated with bushfires, despite a worrying increase in the number of bushfires occurring in recent years. Historically under-studied, there is a significant lack of fire risk warning systems in Scotland.As Scotland follows global warming and climate trends, we are finding that the risk of bushfires to local infrastructure and natural habitats continues to increase.
“Having no knowledge of bushfires or even environmental science, I started by specifically researching bushfires and the events in Scotland. I was very lucky because Ioana connected me with Ophélie Georgina-Marie Mouriot, a researcher at the Technical University of Denmark who has been building and training a bushfire prediction model using machine learning with colleagues at the Technical University of Denmark.
“The model was designed for regions in Italy and has recently been extended to other regions in Western Europe. My role was to adapt the model to Scotland, track different input datasets, customize land cover files and interpret the results.”
What is the motivation for this arrangement?
“As a graduate of the Council for Science and Technology Facilities, home to CEDA, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to undergo three months of training in another department or organization.
“My role at CEDA involves educating users about the vast amount of environmental data available and the JASMIN supercomputer we manage that facilitates climate research.My role has also changed to focus more on improving the service we provide to our users, and I thought the best way to understand their needs was to become part of it myself.
“As a researcher who needs access to our data and facilities, we thought our service would allow the average user to better understand the process of accessing the CEDA archive, downloading data, and processing it in JASMIN.
“As someone who doesn’t necessarily consider myself a scientist, I was also very excited to experience proper research.”
How did you bridge the gap between disciplines?
“I have a fairly interdisciplinary background, and at university I studied cognitive science, which is a combination of computer science and psychology, so I really like connecting different fields of knowledge. I’m always really excited to be able to combine my areas of expertise and apply my knowledge from one field to another.”
“There is no doubt that working with colleagues from other disciplines is beneficial. It highlights the importance of collaboration and how beneficial it is to talk to other researchers and academics. You can always learn something from everyone you talk to.
“I really enjoyed being able to use my computer science skills, which I had only done a small part of in my role at CEDA, and although I have that background, working closely with my colleagues at JASMIN means that I have lots of people to ask questions about if I need anything, from using JASMIN to data access. This has proven to be a valuable asset in my placement.”
What new skills have you developed?
“It opened my eyes to the importance of collaboration. If I had had to build ML models myself from scratch, I wouldn’t have been able to make this much progress. With the foundations already laid, I was able to really hone my programming and machine learning skills. It was also a great experience to perform tasks that are commonplace to most researchers, such as accessing data from the CEDA archive and processing and analyzing this data in JASMIN.”
“One of the big challenges is getting used to the different ways of working between the two departments. At CEDA, we often work on many projects at once and often have to deal with tasks and requests that come up suddenly. Research, on the other hand, can feel like climbing a mountain, hiking hard to the top only to realize that you haven’t reached the top yet.
“During my deployment, I could spend a week working toward one goal, but by the end of it, I didn’t feel like I had made much progress if I had only solved part of one problem. It’s a very different experience from a normal role, where you can achieve several ‘small wins’ throughout the week. It was important to remind myself that I was still progressing, just not at the speed I was used to, and to realize that this was new territory for me and I was learning as I went. Go. ”
Did that placement influence your thoughts about future career directions or research opportunities?
“This placement definitely made me think about research as a future career path, or at least encouraged me to explore ways to incorporate research into my future career. When there is so much to explore, it’s hard to sit back and wait to see if others are interested enough to research it themselves.”
“I can’t recommend a job that goes beyond your field. It’s great to explore a whole new side of academia, feeling like you’ve learned a lot and have a better understanding of the computing technology you last studied at university. I highly recommend choosing a place where you can explore new areas and different ways of working. A job is an ideal opportunity to experience new areas and try different ways of working and researching.”
