Emily Darling & Kim Fisher - The Challenges of Mapping Coral Reefs When Satellites Can't See Them - #MBM 23

Emily Darling & Kim Fisher both work at the Wildlife Conservation Society, respectively as the Director of Coral Reef & as Spatial Analyst. They have developed MERMAID, a platform enabling coral reef scientists to aggregate & share their data together. One of the main challenges they tackle being most measurements need to happen in the field as opposed to being able to leverage satellite imagery.

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Episode Sponsors:

Radiant Earth Foundation • : Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize. Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast ---

About Emily:

LinkedInTwitter About Kim:

LinkedInTwitter World Conservation Society ShownotesMERMAIDWildlife Conservation SocietyAllen Coras AtlasSparkGeo • Books & Podcast Recomendations: We can do hard thingsWhere should we beginSong Exploder • Data Feminism: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/data-feminismHere GOES Radiotelescope • Mannahatta/Welikia: • book: https://www.amazon.com/Mannahatta-Natural-History-York-City/dp/1419707485/ • website: https://welikia.org/ Timestamps

• 00:00 - Introduction • 03:07 - Kim & Emily presenting themselves • 07:49 - Computer Science & Data at the service of Science • 17:30 - A symbiotic relationship Software Engineering & Marine Biology • 23:38 - High level overview of what MERMAID is • 26:52 - What problem does MERMAID solve? • 32:28 - Getting traction on a scientific tool • 37:37 - Stories on top of the data • 46:00 - Another simple question: Why is coral reef important? • 49:55 - Working with Policy Makers • 55:28 - Coral Reef is still measured with pen & paper • 1:01:55 - Partnering with SparkGeo, a geospatial consultancy • 1:10:54 - Thinking about projects over the long term • 1:12:45 - Financing a Non-Profit project • 1:19:40 - Transparency in Non-Profits through Open-Source • 1:25:45 - The impact of Data Science on Emily’s work • 1:29:01 - Book & Podcast Recommendations

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