Summer Internships: Mapping Fires for NASA

Rachael Maingot
GISDE, Class of 2013

This summer I'm working with NASA's DEVELOP National Program at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.  I am part of a team of eight students of various academic backgrounds tasked to develop maps of fire severity and ecological forecasting of the two largest fires in the North Carolina 2011 fire season.  We are using remotely sensed data from multiple NASA satellites, as well as other platforms, to analyze the fuel load and burn damage from peat fires. I live two blocks away from the cleanest beach in Hampton. Whoo! I definitely have taken advantage of the beach by reading there after work and spending weekends with co-workers swimming in the Atlantic. 

North Carolina fire in 2011

North Carolina fire in 2011

Nasa is awesome and I feel very lucky to be close to so many NASA scientists who are passionate about their research and are so willing to teach students. I am excited to learn new skills on how to work on a team to find solutions for a real client. We have the opportunity to create materials for the NC Department of Agriculture to aide in their constant fire struggles, and these materials could actually make a difference for the citizens of North Carolina. I am also excited about learning more skills towards professional growth and making networking contacts to help my career in GIS. Lastly, I am eager to learn how to apply all that I have learned on analyzing raster data on two software programs, ArcGIS and ERDAS, that I have not had much experience working with yet for raster data. All of my GIS-based classes at Clark have helped me prepare for this, though the largest assest to this internship was the Advanced Remote Sensing class because it introduced me to several raster applications and multiple software programs that I will be utilizing this summer. 

-Rachael Maingot, GISDE 2013