Emily Darling & Kim Fisher - The Challenges of Mapping Coral Reefs When Satellites Can't See Them - #MBM 23

Emily Darling & Kim Fisher both work at the Wildlife Conservation Society, respectively as the Director of Coral Reef & as Spatial Analyst. They have developed MERMAID, a platform enabling coral reef scientists to aggregate & share their data together.  One of the main challenges they tackle being most measurements need to happen in the field as opposed to being able to leverage satellite imagery. ---Episode Sponsors:Radiant Earth Foundation: Apply for the 2022 Radiant MLHub Impact Award for agriculture-related applications for Africa - with a $5,000 cash prize.Element84Dan Pilone’s appearance on the podcast---About Emily:LinkedInTwitterAbout Kim:LinkedInTwitterWorld Conservation SocietyShownotesMERMAIDWildlife Conservation SocietyAllen Coras AtlasSparkGeoBooks & Podcast Recomendations:We can do hard thingsWhere should we beginSong ExploderData Feminism: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/data-feminismHere GOES RadiotelescopeMannahatta/Welikia:book: https://www.amazon.com/Mannahatta-Natural-History-York-City/dp/1419707485/website: https://welikia.org/Timestamps00:00 - Introduction03:07 - Kim & Emily presenting themselves07:49 - Computer Science & Data at the service of Science17:30 - A symbiotic relationship Software Engineering & Marine Biology23:38 - High level overview of what MERMAID is26:52 - What problem does MERMAID solve?32:28 - Getting traction on a scientific tool37:37 - Stories on top of the data46:00 - Another simple question: Why is coral reef important?49:55 - Working with Policy Makers55:28 - Coral Reef is still measured with pen & paper1:01:55 - Partnering with SparkGeo, a geospatial consultancy1:10:54 - Thinking about projects over the long term1:12:45 - Financing a Non-Profit project1:19:40 - Transparency in Non-Profits through Open-Source1:25:45 - The impact of Data Science on Emily’s work1:29:01 - Book & Podcast RecommendationsFeel free to reach out!My TwitterFor news about the podcastWebsite