Here you can find more information on specific projects I have worked on. Projects range from homework assignments (data analysis, writing assignments, etc.) to multi-year research efforts culminating in a scientific publication. Posts are tagged by topic. See here for a list of tags.

February 1, 2023

Lyric Sentiment Analysis R Package

For this assignment in ESM 262 Environmental Computing, we were asked to come up with a creative function, visualize the outputs, and then turn that function into a working package for public use. My partner and I created a function that conducts a sentiment analysis on lyrics for songs in the top 100. The required input is an artist name (e.g. Madonna), and the output is a data frame which contains a column for that artists’ Top 100 song titles and a column for the sentiment values for those songs.

February 1, 2023

tif2gif R Package

This R package was designed to turn TIF files into animated GIF files. The unique part is the customization: users can select a prefix and/or suffix of the files they want to use (in case of mixed-contents folders), the speed of the GIF in frames per second, the output and input file paths, an output name (which gets combined with any given prefix or suffix), and the color palette to color the GIF with.

December 8, 2022

A Message for the United States: Munga Mañuha ni ti Gigao-mu*

The colonial history of Guam (hereafter referred to as Guåhan from the indigenous CHamoru language) is not over, and its impacts carry into the present, especially for people and the environment. Initiating full self-governance of Guåhan is a critical step to ensure lasting environmental protection. Without sovereignty, Guåhan will continue to experience environmental degradation and pollution, particularly from the US military, with unfavorable impacts on fisheries leading to food insecurity and cultural losses.

December 1, 2022

GCC Native Plant Nursery Project

The purpose of this project is to determine the feasibility of a native plant nursery in Gaviota, at Baron Ranch or elsewhere. A new native plant nursery would increase the supply of native plants regionally and directly supply restoration projects and native landscaping efforts. This nursery will also provide opportunities for community involvement. My recommendations for this potential nursery will be based off of interviews with stakeholders and rightsholders, analysis of hydrologic and financial data, and other avenues of research.

October 6, 2022

ERI Revegetation Project

During the Summer of 2022 we investigated the following research questions: (1) What plant communities were present pre-industrial agriculture? (2) What plant communities are present on fallowed/retired lands? (3) What is likely to recover with active vs. passive restoration? (4) How do abiotic factors and disturbance history influence this recovery? These questions are intended to explore the links between plant functional groups, fallowing, revegetation, and disturbance, and allow for the use of remote sensing techniques in the process.

June 1, 2022

Agricultural Abandonment

This study aims to quantify and understand changes in agricultural abandonment under a variety of projected climate scenarios, its impacts on connectivity, and how future agricultural demand can be satisfied with these abandoned lands. A manuscript for this project is currently in production. Employer: emLab (Environmental Markets Lab, UCSB) and Conservation International, through a larger project called SPARCLE/SPARC (Spatial Planning for Climate Change: Land Use for Conservation, Agriculture, and Energy). The funding for this particular project comes from the Arnhold Fellowship.

March 1, 2022

Collaborative Conservation Planning for the Gaviota Region

This project is a Bren Group Project through the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara. Colleagues: Alexandra Martin, Alissa Patterson, Alessandra Puig-Santana, Katherine Rosencrance, Pol Carbó Mestre, Kelly Caylor (advisor) Client: The Nature Conservancy Project Website: Bren GP Website Shiny App: Gaviota Region Interactive Planner

March 1, 2022

ESM 270 Conservation Planning Assignments

The assignments included on this page are snippets of assignments that I submitted for ESM 270 Conservation Planning. The full assignments also included co-written lab reports from myself and a peer, of which only the summaries are included here. All maps below are my own, created with ArcGIS. Lab 4 Summary: Jaguars (Panthera onca) of the Talamanca-Osa region of Southern Costa Rica are experiencing habitat fragmentation from human land use. A Circuitscape and Linkage Mapper analysis of least cost paths and land use types in this area show that agricultural pastures and palm plantations are the largest threats to jaguars.

January 1, 2022

ESM 263 GIS Assignments

This class was intended to build a working knowledge of GIS theory and practice in a single quarter. GIS, or Geographic Information Systems, are used to visualize, analyze, and interpret geographic data. Three of my assignments for this class are displayed below. Assignment 2 This map reveals how sea-level rise will impact downtown Santa Barbara spatially and financially. Created with QGIS. Assignment 3 This map highlights the top ten potential sites for wind turbines in Santa Barbara County, based on a multi-criteria analysis.