NORTHWEST NAZARENE UNIVERSITY
Six NNU undergraduate Computer Science students were published in the December 2020 and January 2021 issues of Remote Sensing, an academic peer-reviewed journal. Their publications are presented as part of the special issue of “Advances in Remote Sensing of Post-Fire Environmental Damage and Recovery Dynamics.”
“I’m very proud of my students who have worked hard on our wildland fire research and subsequent authorship of these papers,” Dr. Dale Hamilton, Associate Professor of Computer Science, said. “At NNU, we don’t have grad students to help with research, so our undergrad computer science majors get to assume those duties, which has now resulted in a pair of papers being published in Remote Sensing, an impactful, prestigious and highly cited journal. The success of our research is directly related to the quality of the students who attend NNU.”
The two articles center around the hands-on research the students have conducted, mapping large wildfires using satellite imagery and machine learning. This research will pave the way toward safer and more affordable wildfire tracking and management.
The article published in the December issue, “Mapping Burn Extent of Large Wildland Fires from Satellite Imagery Using Machine Learning Trained from Localized Hyperspatial Imagery,” was authored by Dr. Dale Hamilton and students Enoch Levandovsky and Nicholas Hamilton, and focuses on the use of small unmanned aircraft systems to map “the severity and extent of large wildland fires.”
The article published in the January issue, “Wildland Fire Tree Mortality Mapping from Hyperspatial Imagery Using Machine Learning,” was authored by Dr. Dale Hamilton and students Kamden Brothers, Samuel Jones, Jason Colwell and Jacob Winters, and discusses the “study of machine learning to identify burn severity” in measuring forest canopy reduction.
“When Dr. Hamilton first offered me a research position at NNU, I never imagined the career opportunities it could offer,” senior Enoch Levandovsky said. “My experience at NNU has given me the inspiration to further pursue my master’s degree.”
NNU’s Computer Science students are well accomplished, have received regional awards, been published in peer-reviewed publications, and placed among the nation’s top five teams in the IEEExtreme programming competition. Upon graduation, 100% of NNU’s Computer Science students secure jobs within their field.
