General Information

Feb 5, 2024

Overview

Our research group focuses on big remote sensing and geospatial data analysis problems, primarily involving digital terrain models, landscape evolution, and the Earth’s cryosphere.

Within CEE, we are part of the Hydrology and Hydrodynamics group, and collaborate with the Geotechnical Engineering group. Beyond CEE, there are many opportunities for potential coadvising and close collaboration with faculty and research scientists at the eScience Institute, the UW Applied Physics Lab (APL), the Department of Earth and Space Sciences (ESS), and elsewhere on campus. We collaborate with researchers across government, industry and academia.

You don’t need to have an engineering degree to join us! Many of us come from Earth Science backgrounds and think about science questions, but we apply engineering principles and develop creative approaches to study and solve hard problems. We all appreciate the applied nature of our research in an engineering department.

Note that the positions and projects listed are rough outlines, so if you don’t quite fit, but are passionate about something similar or have your own ideas for an exciting project, please reach out to discuss further. Both hourly and FTE positions are possible, with flexible remote work options.

If interested in learning more about our group and discussing potential opportunities, please contact Professor David Shean via email and include a resume/CV and brief summary of research interests.

Postdocs

There are often opportunities for postdoc positions of variable length (1 year minimum commitment) on our funded projects. There are also several postdoc fellowship programs (NASA NPP, NSF) - reach out if you are considering applying for these and would like to scope a project together.

PhD and MS Students

The UW CEE deadline for graduate student applications is December 15, but rolling applications are accepted year-round. For additioinal information, see the UW CEE graduate program information page.

Coursework

Students in our research group typically pursue the Data Science Option for the CEE PhD program and take courses in multiple departments (CEE, ESS, CSE, AMATH, etc.) based on their interests. There are no formal core coursework requirements in our program, and new courses are constantly being created (especially in data science and machine learning). Recommended coursework (list coming soon)…

Funding

Students employees are supported (stipend, tuition, benefits) by some combination of Research Assistant (RA) appointments, Teaching Assistant (TA) appointments, and fellowships during the program. This includes summer quarter.

Many students in our group apply for (and receive) fellowships, including the NASA FINESST and NSF GRFP. These prestigous fellowships offer 3 years of support, which allows for more flexibility in research topics. It’s possible to apply for and receive an NSF GRFP fellowship before prior to starting at UW, while NASA FINESST proposals are usually submitted in your first or second year of the program. There are many other fellowships and external student funding sources available, see various CEE and UW web pages on these topics.

Undergraduates

We often have hourly positions available on different projects. These are typically ~5-20 hr/wk during the academic year, potentially up to 40 hr/wk over the summer. See the UW Undergraduate Research Opportunities Database for latest posts.

https://new.expo.uw.edu/expo/opportunities/3076

Project Description

We are looking for motivated undergraduates interested in joining our research team (https://uw-cryo.github.io/) to gain research experience using satellite remote sensing and geospatial data analysis to study climate change (glaciers, snow, hydrology, landslides, etc.). We welcome students with varied backgrounds, even with limited research experience.

Student Learning Benefit

Apply what you’ve learned in classes to understand our changing Planet! Training using state-of-the-art methods and open-source software to process large data archives of satellite and drone datasets Real-world experience in scientific analysis and communication Potential to present research at symposium and other conferences, potential coauthorship on publications

Minimum Requirements

None. We are looking for people who are independent, creative and curious self-starters, eager to learn, and who value a high level of professionalism. Our lab emphasizes an open-source approach and community contributions. Nice to have: experience with GIS, Python, Linux

Active funded projects

  • Surface Topography and Vegetation Incubation Team, NASA
  • Satellite stereo and laser altimetry fusion for snow depth measurement, NASA, USBR
  • ICESat-2 SlideRule data processing, development and applicaiton, NASA
  • Systematic regional geodetic glacier mass balance from high-resolution DEMs (High-mountain Asia, North America), NASA, USGS
  • Digital Glacier Time Machine: extracting decadal DEM time series for North American glaciers using historical aerial photographs and declassified spy satellite imagery, UW Innovation Award, USGS
  • Photogrammetry workflow development for range of sensors (commercial very-high-resolution satellite imagery from Maxar and Planet, historical aerial/satellite imagery, modern UAV platforms), NASA
  • Optimizing data storage and processing in high-performance computing (HPC) and commercial cloud (AWS, GCP, etc.) environments, NASA
  • Ice-ocean interaction: remote observation of ice shelf basal melting and ice stream dynamics, NASA
  • Rapid satellite and/or UAV data collection, processing and analysis to support natural disaster response, UW