University of the Virgin Islands

Research Analyst II (Jan. 2015 - May 2017)

After graduating in Dec. 2014 I was hired full time and assisted with a number of research areas including:

Passive Acoustic Telemetry
Oceanography Research
Sea Turtle Research

Highlights

Assisted with equipment, design, and the data analysis for eight passive acoustic telemetry arrays located throughout the US Virgin Islands
Developed automated workflows for acoustic telemetry data and oceanography data sets with python

Passive Acoustic Telemetry

I maintained equipment, designed, and managed eight passive acoustic telemetry arrays throughout the US Virgin Islands, with close to ~150 active acoustic receivers.

Focus of Passive Acoustic Telemetry Studies:

Fish Spawning Aggregations (Grouper, Snapper, Triggerfish)
Environmental changes and animal responses
Trophic Group Interactions
Hawksbill and Green Sea Turtle movements
Range test and equipment limitations

Vemco Vr2W Receivers to be deployed

Fish are caught, measured,and some tagged

Data is processed, and animations created

Automated passive acoustic telemetry workflow

overVUE v1.1

overVUE is a standard .exe file or Python 3 script that runs Vemco’s VUE software from the command line and extracts the detection and event data returning each one as an individual csv file. This allows for batch processing of many .vrl files, and also returns the event data in an easy to use format.

Custom python program created allowed for automation of data processing
Initially took ~16 hours, only takes ~1 hour with this program, also no human error

Oceanography

For about six months I filled in for the oceanographic technician in addition to my other responsibilities. During this time I organized/developed water quality sampling plans, maintained a variety of oceanographic equipment (See equipment skills for more details), and developed automated workflows to quickly process incoming data using python.

Water Quality Sampling

Seabird CTDs

Automated Plot of CTD Data

Sea Turtle Research

Passive and active acoustic telemetry of threatened green sea turtles and critically endangered hawksbill sea turtles was performed. I assisted with equipment maintenance, data processing, and training of students in regards to acoustic telemetry.

All work conducted under National Marine Fisheries Service Permit (Do NOT harass sea turtles in the wild needlessly)

Hawksbill sea turtle to be measured, weighed, and tagged

Active and passive acoustic transmitter on hawksbill sea turtle

Active acoustic transmitter on green sea turtle

Active Acoustic Telemetry Tracking Results

Transmitters found by actively listening, and recording Boats location and direction of signal

Passive Acoustic Telemetry Tracking Results

Vemco Vr2 Hydrophones continually listen for transmitters and record unique ID when turtle transmitter is detected by the hydrophone

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