Category: Incubator Project

• Constructing a robust metric of peak quality for untargeted mass-spectrometry

  

  Project Lead: Will Kumler, UW Oceanography Faculty Advisor: Anitra Ingalls, UW Professor of Chemical Oceanography Data Science Lead: Bryna Hazelton Mass spectrometry is a cutting-edge analysis field used to identify the molecular composition of samples taken from medical laboratories, the depths of the ocean, and even outer space. In the Ingalls Lab at UW, we use it to…

• Leveraging large satellite archives to understand the timing and distribution of global snowmelt

  

  Project Lead: Eric Gagliano, Terrain Analysis and Cryosphere Observation Lab, UW Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Advisor: David Shean, UW Civil & Environmental Engineering Data Science Lead: Scott Henderson Seasonal snow plays an essential role in the Earth system and more than 1/6 of the world’s population relies on runoff from seasonal snow and glaciers for agricultural and…

• Patterns of COVID-19-related mis/disinformation on Twitter: themes of mis/disinformation and data visualizations

  

  Project Lead: Katie Gonser, Jackson School of International Studies eScience Liaison: Jose Hernandez This project looks at COVID-19-related mis/disinformation in Louisiana and Washington state during the first two surges of the pandemic. Part of a broader collaborative study between social scientists at the University of Washington and computer scientists at Louisiana State University (LSU), this research…

• Geometry of Color: Connecting spectral topography of the central cone photoreceptor mosaic to functional limits of the human trichromatic visual system

  

  Project Lead: Sierra Schleufer, Neuroscience eScience Liaison: Bryna Hazelton Humans experience remarkable visual acuity among mammals thanks to a retinal mosaic in which cone photoreceptors sensitive to three spans of the visual spectrum are increasingly concentrated toward the central visual field.  Our trichromatic vision allows us to discriminate hues along two spectrally opponent axes in addition to…

• Climate Refuge in Urban Areas: Using Spatial Data to Identify Risk and Benefit Tradeoffs

  

  Project Lead: Rebecca Neumann, Civil & Environmental Engineering eScience Liaison: Spencer Wood and Scott Henderson In Washington State, climate change is causing more frequent summer water shortages, wildfire, flooding, poor air quality, heat-related illnesses, respiratory illnesses, and mental health stress. Socially and economically disadvantaged people are disproportionately impacted by these changes. Given these disproportionate impacts, there is a…

• User-friendly Tools for Oceanic Plankton Image Analysis (UTOPIA)

  

  Project Lead: Ali Chase, Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Applied Physics Laboratory  eScience Liaison: Valentina Staneva Thanks to recent advances in instrumentation, we can now observe phytoplankton – the single-celled autotrophs that form the base of the marine food web – using automated, high-throughput microscopy. Millions of phytoplankton images have been collected from oceans and seas…

• Machine-learning-based detection of offshore earthquakes

  

  Project Lead: Zoe Krauss, School of Oceanography, College of the Environment eScience Liaison: Scott Henderson The fault zones that cause the most devastating earthquakes and tsunamis on Earth lie beneath our oceans, but offshore seismic observations are severely limited by a lack of instrumentation and noisy data. To fully understand Earth’s geodynamics and the hazard that…

• Using Social Media to Model Backcountry Use in Rainier National Park

  

  Project Lead: Gabe Wisswaesser, School of Environmental & Forest Sciences eScience Liaison: Spencer Wood As public land use increases, accurate visitation numbers are paramount to managers and researchers interested in mitigating and understanding anthropogenic effects. Alpine water quality, as of late, has been under exceptionally high pressure because human waste mitigation is not keeping up with…

• Detecting Wildflowers in Spectral Imagery

  

  Project Lead: Aji John, Department of Biology eScience Liaison: Nicoleta Cristea and Amanda Tan Alpine wildflowers are integral part of montane ecosystems; they provide a wide variety of ecosystem services like pollination, and nutrient recycling. Numerous studies have found that these wildflower species are sensitive to climate warming as their flowering phenology (development stage) is strongly related to…

• Climate Adaptation for Future Maize – Novel Plant Traits and New Management

  

  Project Lead: Jennifer Hsiao, Department of Biology eScience Liaison: Bryna Hazelton Over the next three decades rising population and changing dietary preferences are expected to increase food demand by 25–75%. At the same time climate is also changing — with potentially drastic impacts on food production. Breeding for new crop characteristics and adjusting management practices have…