Globalink MiTACS Secondment to INRS
In partnership with
For the summer of 2023 I have had the amazing chance to join the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS) in Quebec City, Canada funded by the Globalink MiTACS UKRI internship. The internship is aimed at building relationships between UK and Canadian researchers. INRS is a very diverse research institute, this allowed me to build more bonds with researchers from across the world!
The project that I was there to work on was an offshoot of the work I have been carrying out for my PhD with the CDT. In England I have been working on using artificial intelligence to create water masks from PlanetScope Satellite imagery, to enable operationalization of the vast potential provided by daily optical satellite imagery! In Canada we looked to take these models I have built and measure discharge from space in larger Canadian rivers. This was especially apt as on top of the wildfires that made the global news (These did not impact Quebec City at all that summer), the Quebec province suffered from some severe flooding that summer.
We focused our research on the Sainte Marguerite River which gave me further opportunities to collaborate with the various researchers who call the ‘CIRSA’ fieldwork centre home. By combining field measurements with an Acoustic Dopler Current Profiler, the CEQUEAU hydrological model that is the focus of Prof. André St-Hilaire’s lab, and my satellite measurements we were able to show where we could extend and improve discharge monitoring.
With a group of students from INRS, we attended the Canadian Water Resources Association Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Here I presented our findings and the work from my PhD during the Canadian Space Agency session.
My time in Canada was unforgettable and it really broadened my horizons to work in a city where the primary language was not English! I would like to thank my supervisors and support staff in the CDT for helping me get to Canada as well Prof. André St-Hilaire and Prof. Normand Bergeron for welcoming me into their Labs.
But most of all I would like to thank the other students and people I met for really welcoming me into the community and showing me the best bits of Quebec. Eisenhower and Diana for the BBQs and F1, Alex, Mathias, Simon, and Savannah for the hiking, climbing, fieldwork, and festivals! And finally, everyone at Le Coureur Nordique Run club for showing me the mountains and trails around the city!