Blog Posts
Travels and Fun Facts!
Lab Meeting - November 20th, 2025
November has been a month full of travel! I am very grateful and happy to have gone on these trips, which gave me a change of scene and the opportunity to explore new places.
Sudbury Field Course (November 1st - 8th)
At the beginning of this month I attended the sudbury field school, taught by Oz, where we learned about the impact crater in the region and how its effects are still seen today. After a few days of lectures, we split off into smaller groups and mapped the shatter cones in the area. We were given a general area on a map, and drove along the highways/roads, stopping at outcrops along the way and recording observations about the rock and whether any shatter cones were seen. My group was lucky enough to come across so many shatter cones the first day (see some images below)!
Although it was a bit rainy, the temperatures were never too cold and it was quite nice to be outside in the fresh air all day. Besides the school aspect, the course was also a great way to make friends and get closer with some of the other geology graduate students. Our evenings were spent playing games, talking and having lots of laughs. Oz even provided us all with shatter cone beer (pictured below with the two shatter cone samples I took home that are currently sitting in the dinning room of my student house).
The scientific fun fact I learned about the Sudbury impact crater is that almost all the shatter cones found were south of the crater, since the rocks there are softer and would have formed shatter cones easier. The non scientific fun fact I already knew but was reinforced on this trip was that little animals use the outcrops as homes so check to make sure you aren't taking a salamanders home before removing a sample (said salamander below, his house was promptly rebuilt by us after this photo)
San Francisco (November 13th - 24th)
After Sudbury I had a very quick turn around to do laundry and repack for my travels to San Francisco, where my boyfriend currently lives and works. I have been working from his house during the day, and exploring the city on the weekends and evenings. The weather is a lovely 12-16 degrees so it's a nice break from all the snow we got before we left. I have had some incredible food, powered up some rediculously steep hills, and gotten a lot of work done thanks to the 40" monitor that my boyfriend has that makes me feel like im on Mars when working with jmars (yipee for productivity)!
I've included some photos i've taken so far while here (for those that don't know I really enjoy photography and have maybe too many cameras). For this trip I packed my only digital camera - a fujifilm X-E2 with a prime 35mm lens. While in a second hand camera shop I picked up a new polarized filter to try since my camera is old and doesn't do well in low contrast situations (i.e. cloudy days in SF)
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The scientific fun fact I learned is that the area where the Golden Gate bridge is, used to be a vast plain that stretched 27 miles past the current California coastline. This area was where the rivers from the Sierra exited into the sea before flooding occured. Another fun fact I learned was about how native lupine plants thrive here because the serpentine soils, which exists due to the techtonic boundary the city sits on.
Paper Summary
Lab Meeting - February 25th, 2026
The article that I will be summarizing is titled "SAR image edge detection: review and benchmark experiments" by M.J. Meester and A.S. Baslamisli, found at https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2022.2131480.
This article presents a comprehensive overview of SAR image edge detection. The authors begin with describing issues with edge detection such as speckle noise. Edge detection, which is one of the oldest operations in image processing, can help determine boundaries of objects in the images. Having accurate edge detection is important as it is a building block for more complex image processing algorithms. Existing basic edge detection algorithms use first and second derivative methods, however there are more complex algorithms that are built for SAR images such as Touzi, gradient by ratio, Gaussian-Gamma-Shaped bi-windows and more. To test all these algorithms, the authors created an experimental setup based on existing sets that use ground-truthing data as a threshold. They applied de-noising techniques, indentified key features then used the aforementioned threshold to recognize "true edges". After applying this method on a number of edge detection techniques, they found that the method with the best accuraccy for SAR specific data was GSS-bi-window, although a few others had good results as well. The authors then applied multiple edge detection algorithms to real SAR data, and used psuedogenerated ground-truthing as a comparison, with varying performance in algorithms. The authors conclude with a discussion of the possibilities of future edge detection algorithms such as those with deep-learning.
Overall If found the review quite interesting and well done for the most part. However, early on in the paper they mention that a lack of a quantitative benchmark but I think it could've benifited from a better explanation on what they were looking for. I also found the paper was quite dense in some parts due to its high technical nature, however this is not unexpected due to the in-depth nature of the review. However it is important noting I read this paper quite late at night and both these complaints can be attributed to my tiredness (whoops).
My Future Goals and Steps to Reach it
Lab Meeting - February 25th, 2026
This weeks assignment was to write about what I want to do in my future and the steps I'm taking to get there. To be completely transparent, I have no idea what I want to do! I usually like to leave all options open for my future and "go with the flow" when new opportunity or interests appear. For example if you asked me in first or second year engineering if I'd do a masters degree in a completely different field I knew nothing about I would say "no way!", yet five years later, I'm doing exactly that.
My two major options are industry, specifically looking at testing, satellite operations etc. Since I have work experience as a test engineer for a major satellite computer manufacturer, I am confident in my ability to go into this field. To keep this option open, I'm attempting to keep up my engineering skills through coding for researching, and projects on the side that I would like to work on (time permitting ).
The other option, of course is continuing in academia. Since it is early in my masters still I am not sure if this is the path for me. I hope that as my masters continues I will develop a better understanding of myself and my goals for the future. Programs that I think would be interesting are instrumentation and development, for example the phD in Astrophysics and Planetary Science degree at CU Boulder (however thats very competitive:(( ) . I will have to do more research in potential programs and people to reach out to over the next year or so to figure out what would be a good fit for me.
Two Truths and a Lie
Lab Meeting - May 29th, 2026
1. I played viola when I was younger
2. I've read 32 books in 2026 so far
3. I had a Ted Talk video I made submitted to TedEd
Statement 1...... TRUTH! I did play viola for many years (from around grade four to grade eleven. I learned it through school and it came quite naturally to me. I participated in extra-curricular orchestras I auditioned for, which gave me the chance to play at Massey Hall in Toronto. I also attended the National Music Camp of Canada for a few years, which was a week of intense music practice along with some normal camp activites. For highschool I was accepted into an arts school for Viola specifically but chose to go somewhere else for their STEM program. Eventually the opportunites to play in extracurricular orchestras faded as I grew up and robotics became my main focus. I do miss playing, and it instilled an appreciation for classical music in me
Statement 2...... TRUTH! Reading is one of my hobbies/passions and I like to track what I read on Goodreads. I wasn't allowed TV or video games growing up, so my journalist parents brought my sister and I up with books and our imaginations as entertainment. In fact I used to get in trouble for reading with a flashlight past my bedtime (although in retrospect I wonder if secretly my parents were happy that I was reading that much). Thanks to all that reading, I have become incredibly quick. I actually don't have a narrative voice in my head when I read, instead I just kind of "absorb" the words and visualize them (very hard to explain lol). This is actually why I find it hard to read Sci-Fi, because if I can't visualize the scene, then I have to revert to using a narrative voice which slows me down significantly. Long story short, I love reading most genres and I'm always happy to have a discussion about my books
Statement 3...... FALSE! I did actually take a TedTalk course in grade twelve, where the entire course was researching and creating a tedtalk. My teacher did request to submit mine to the official TedEd youtube for posting. I originally said yes, but changed my answer because I bashed Elon Musk in the begining. At the time he was still mostly respected in the tech world so I was worried about ruining any fututr job chances
Lessons From the "Field"
Lab Meeting - June 11th, 2026
For this lab meeting, we were told to describe a lessoned learned from being in the field. Since I have only ever done field classes, i'm choosing to talk about my most memorable time in nature and the lessons I learned there.
In the week between the end of my 16 month coop and the start of my final year of undergrad, I decided to head to the rockies with my friend to explore the mountains and go on my first ever hiking backcountry trip. In the past I had done a few canoe trips but never had to hike gear more then 2.5 km.
The route we chose was a popular one, that was about 12.5km with 700m of elevation. We got to the trail head bright and early but actually ended up napping in the car for four hours since the rain was so bad. Eventually we had to suck it up and start hiking since if we waited any longer, we wouldn't have gotten to camp before dark. Luckily the rain cleared up, we went slow and steady since my friend was feeling a bit nauseous, but that just meant that we got to enjoy the views.
We stayed at the campsite for two nights, doing some dayhikes to surrounding lakes the following day and having what I call "lizard time" in the creek running through camp (which is really just finding a big flat rock warmed up from the sun and lying on it).
The lessoned learned happend on the way back down. It was a hot and sunny day, and since it was mostly downhill and we were excited to eat non-dehydrated food we really wanted to push back to the car and carbo-load at the Old Spagetti Factory in Banff. Because the hike was downhill, we felt like we needed to take less breaks since it was realtively easy. Unfortunately for me, being out in the sun for many hours while carrying a bunch of camping gear on my back did not bode well and the second we stopped for lunch I got incredibly nauseous. We had to sit there for a while until I cooled down and my stomach was willing to hold food and water to get me back down the rest of the mountain. Thankfully we were next to a lovely mountain stream which helped.
From this experience I've learned that even going downhill, taking breaks is a good idea. I also learned that I am really suseptible to sun/heat exhaustion.
