Patricia Sung
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Position: Honours B.Sc.(Ag.Env.Sc.) Environment: Biodiversity and Conservation, minor in GIS & Remote Sensing Research Interests: Google Earth Engine (GEE), remote sensing, machine learning, wildlife conservation, landscape and wildlife ecology, Indigenous knowledge, and community-based research I grew up in Hawaii but moved to Montréal in 2018 to study at McGill. I joined the lab in 2021 as an Honours B.Sc.(Ag.Env.Sc.) Environment: Biodiversity and Conservation student with a minor in GIS & Remote Sensing. Through this lab, I had the opportunity to provide user feedback on a textbook about Google Earth Engine and also do an honours research project where I researched "The Viability of Using High Resolution Spatial Imagery as an Alternative to Monitoring Beaver Presence in Nunavik". Since the northward expansion of the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) into the arctic tundra is not well-studied, it is important to research how beavers affect and interact with the local ecosystem. This is of special interest to many Inuit land-users who depend on native wildlife species like Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) and Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis). Thanks to the support of this lab as well as the Northern Wildlife Knowledges Lab, Makivik Corporation and the Indigenous Community-based Climate Monitoring Fund (ICBCM), I am able to continue my research on finding ways to both accurately and rapidly detect beaver activity. This research includes developing methods using satellite imagery and machine learning to identify beaver presence in Nunavik. |
