Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Waterloo researchers' tool to be part of European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative

This article originally appeared on Waterloo News.

To advance climate change monitoring and public safety, researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed new tools that bring an unprecedented level of accuracy to identifying lake ice conditions. 

The researchers are the first to use machine learning models for processing satellite radar altimetry data that can identify between open water, thin ice, growing ice, or melting ice with 94 per cent accuracy.  

The algorithm is a major step forward for climate change monitoring and will be implemented as part of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Climate Change Initiative to assess lake ice trends over time. It is also significant for public safety and recreation because the presence or absence of lake ice in Northern communities affects transportation on ice roads, food security, recreational activities, and tourism.

"There is a long history of low-resolution satellites providing inaccurate ice condition estimates," said Jaya Sree Mugunthan, master's student in Waterloo's Department of Geography and Environmental Management. "As satellite technology has evolved, we now have higher resolution data to inform our classification work and combined with state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, it allows for these research and societal advances."

In a recent study, the researchers analyzed the largest lakes in the northern hemisphere located in Canada, U.S., Sweden, and Russia over a three-year-period. The lakes differed in size, elevation, geographical location, and seasonal ice changes, allowing them to test the algorithm's rigour.

Dr. Claude Duguay conducting research during a field visit in Inuvik.

"We are at a stage where the algorithms we created are achieving high accuracies," said Claude Duguay, professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management. "As soon as the data becomes available, we can run it through the algorithm and report on the ice conditions, which is available to the public."

Future work will test new machine-learning approaches using data from satellites that were launched by the ESA last year. The researchers will also use the model on smaller lakes, like in Ontario’s cottage country.

This research is in keeping with Waterloo’s commitment to being a leader in sustainability research and education as the institution has been a catalyst for environmental innovation, solutions and talent for 50 years.

The study, Machine learning based classification of lake ice and open water from Sentinel-3 SAR altimetry waveforms, appears in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment.

February Anti-Racism Reads: The Future is Disabled

A message from the Library and Print + Retail Solutions.

Join the Library and Print + Retail Solutions for the next Anti-Racism Reads discussion at Dana Porter Library on Thursday February 29. Aimée Morrison and Margaret F. Gibson will facilitate a conversation on The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs.  

“Piepzna-Samarasinha is one of the strongest contemporary voices in the fields of disability and transformative justice ... Unflinching and confrontational, The Future is Disabled doesn't pull any punches. It is both an instructional guide and a critical, eye-opening manifesto that will help nondisabled readers engage with the subject matter.” -Booklist  

This in-person event will take place from 12 noon until 1:30 p.m. in Dana Porter’s third floor Learning Lab. To register for this event, please visit the Library’s website. 

Copies of The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs are available through the Library's reserve system or for purchase at the W Store in South Campus Hall. Please note: We are working towards removing barriers to participation, providing easy access to the selected text. We have limited copies available free of cost for those who sign up for the event and indicate they'd like a copy on the registration form. 

Mimi Browne named Conrad Grebel's new Director of Operations

A message from Conrad Grebel University College.

As Conrad Grebel University College looks to the future, Mimi Browne has been named the next Director of Operations, bringing practical experience, an eagerness to learn, and a knowledgeable presence to the role. Mimi has worked at Grebel since 2011, in five roles of increasing responsibility. Previously the College’s Operations Assistant, she is currently Grebel’s Human Resources Manager and Privacy Officer.

"Mimi has strong first-hand knowledge of Grebel and its operations, both as a student and as an employee,” remarked President Marcus Shantz. “She's also a lifelong learner with extensive training from outside the College in human resources, property management and other relevant areas. Mimi has deep understanding and appreciation for Grebel, but that knowledge is informed by valuable expertise that can help us improve and make changes where we need to."

With a BA in Anthropology and post-degree studies in Human Resources Management from the University of Waterloo, Mimi is a Certified Human Resources Professional. She is currently studying in the Facilities Management Administrator program offered by BOMI Education Canada, and will complete her certification next year. When she was a student living at Grebel, she founded several clubs and initiatives that still exist today, and was an active member of the Peace Society and Chapel Committee.

“The Director of Operations supports the programs, people, and facilities at Grebel,” explained Director of Finance Sara Cressman, who was on the hiring committee. “Mimi brings experience in all these areas and has demonstrated that she responds to any situation calmly with thoughtfulness and good insights. I am excited to work with Mimi in this role and to see the Operations Team flourish under her leadership.”

“I was drawn to this role because the broad scope of it is exciting,” shared Mimi. “I love working with all areas of Grebel in my current role and am looking forward to continuing those relationships in a new capacity.” The Director of Operations is part of Grebel’s leadership team and is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the College’s physical plant, information technology systems, human resources, food and hospitality services, security and safety, and front office and reception. “I am most looking forward to working with the wonderful Grebel Operations Team to support all facets of Grebel's meaningful and inspiring work,” Mimi added.

Part of Grebel’s Strategic Plan focuses on building resilience for the future. “In addition to expanding environmental stewardship efforts in our buildings and operations, we are also committed to helping our employees realize their potential so that they can thrive in their roles,” added Marcus. “I am looking forward to working with Mimi in this new capacity, as we shape Grebel’s operational future.”

Mimi will start her new role on February 16. She replaces Paul Penner who is retiring after serving Grebel for 35 years, most recently as Director of Operations.

Meet Professor Shlomi Steinberg, a computer scientist who studies ray and wave optics, light transport and rendering

A message from the Cheriton School of Computer Science.

Professor Shlomi Steinberg has a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. While pursuing his doctoral degree he was a recipient of an NVIDIA PhD fellowship. He received his MSc in mathematics and computer science from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel under the supervision of Professor David Harel. His master’s research centred on efficient execution and distribution of formally verifiable software paradigms. Previously, he was a rendering engineer working on CRYENGINE, a leading game- and rendering-engine, and on HUNT: Showdown, a successful AAA video game. 

Professor Steinberg’s research interests are in ray and wave optics, light transport and rendering. His research resides between the realms of computer graphics and computational optics. He is working toward developing a cohesive computational theory to simulate the wave-optical behaviour of light in complex, real-life scenes and environments. One application is simulating how optical and radar sensors in driving-assistive technologies perceive the environment. Accurate simulation of the car’s sensors would allow researchers to generate data for testing, validation, and training in a safe, virtual environment.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of a Q&A interview.

When did you become interested in computer graphics and computational optics?
Computer graphics, rendering and optics are areas of research I’ve been interested in for a long time. I’ve spent many years, both in the industry and in academia, working in these areas.

If I step back a bit, it’s really about light. I’ve long been fascinated by how light works, how it interacts, how it behaves — the physics of light — and simulating that physics precisely and accurately on a computer, which is difficult to do.

Initially, I was interested in particular optical effects that you can observe and how these effects can be simulated on a computer, but my research interests now encompass a bigger picture. I’m interested in light behaviour as a global physical process. When I say light I don’t mean just the light we can see — what’s known as the visible spectrum — but also light we cannot see, the other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum used, for example, in radar and in cellular communications. Radio is a form of electromagnetic radiation just like light, and understanding and simulating such nonvisible bands on a computer is not only very important but also an open problem.

I also work on rendering, a part of my research that has applications in computer-generated imagery and computer games. Efficient wave-optical rendering is a side interest. It’s not as rigorous as simulating real light physics as we don’t need ultra-accurate simulations for video games. 

From the perspective of computational electromagnetism, there’s interest in being able to design meta surfaces and meta materials that produce a particular response in particular applications. It’s difficult to simulate such materials, and optimizing materials for a particular optical response is a difficult problem, known as inverse rendering, in computer graphics. Work in this area is very much a core element of my current research. As an application, consider radar in self-driving cars. You want to be able to simulate what the sensors see but do so not on the road in a real physical environment, which can be dangerous. You might want to do so to train your software and validate it. You might want to optimize materials that could interfere with and blind your sensors, or design your sensors or software in a way that is more resistant to such interference.

Another application of my research is in optimizing cellular communications. Say your city has a budget to build five cellular towers and you want to optimize their placement in a way that maximizes cellular coverage. Here, you would write an optimization simulation, which is extremely difficult as it needs to be a three-dimensional simulation of electromagnetic radiation. We tend to think of cell towers as objects in two dimensions, but a cellular network operates in three dimensions. Optimizing placement in a three-dimensional environment in a way that maximizes cellular coverage is the kind of problem my research aims to address.

Read the full Q & A on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website