Naomi Tack successfully defends her Masters Thesis

Naomi Tack, iHARP Research Assistant, successfully defended her Master's Thesis on Thursday, April 25. Join iHARP in congratulating Naomi on her successful defense. 

Abstract

Polar science studies many aspects of the north and south poles, and glaciers. In order to better understand the internal structure of ice sheets and how they are impacted by climate change, ice penetrating radar is used. This radar captures the layers inside the ice sheet which can then be used to understand layer behavior and flow inside the glacier. Layers can be picked out of these radargrams and then visualized to give an indication of the internal topology. We explore two areas in which these radargrams are used, namely analysis of machine-picked layers and immersive visualization of these layers. Analysis of machine picked layers is achieved through the development of quality metrics which are independent of number of layers. We present these metrics and analysis of their utility. Immersion is accomplished through WebXR, inspired by recent research in both polar science and other scientific fields. We present the system, its controls and limitations, and evaluations to be performed on this system. 

Committee Members

Professor Don Engel (Co-chair), Professor Rebecca Williams (Co-chair), Professor Tejas Gokhale

Image Note: In the left panel, Naomi Tack is defending her dissertation. In the right panel, Naomi stands with her iHARP mentors, (left to right: Dr. Becca Williams, Naomi Tack, and Dr. Don Engel).

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