Dr. Heather Lynch on “How many Adélie penguins are there? and other mysteries solved by satellites”

Posted on September 30, 2018 by Clara Tran

On September 18, Dr. Heather Lynch, of the Department of Ecology and Evolution, presented the first lecture of the fall 2018 University Libraries STEM Speakers Series with her talk, “How many Adélie penguins are there? and other mysteries solved by satellites” in the Special Collections Seminar Room of the Melville Library.

Dr. Lynch’s Antarctic Site Inventory Project, a large-scale vessel-based breeding bird survey program partnered with the nonprofit research organization Oceanites, focuses on searching for penguin abundance and distribution in Antarctica. Satellite imagery allows Dr. Lynch and her colleagues the study of the spatiotemporal dynamics and biogeography of Antarctic penguin colonies at the continental scale and regional scale. However, Dr. Lynch emphasised that medium-resolution sensors such as Landat from NASA should be used in addition to high resolution commercial sensors such as Worldview-3 for a more comprehensive interpretation of imageries.

This intriguing and extraordinary lecture prompted interesting questions from the audience.