Category: News

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Laefer Featured as Invited Speaker at DEF CON 26

Invited to speak at the BioHack Village at DEF CON 26, Prof. Debra Laefer continued the Urban Modeling Group’s tradition of engagement with potential collaborators from a diversity of disciplines, including macrogenomics and bio hacking, when she spoke at the event last Friday, August 10th in Las Vegas. Prof. Laefer’s talk, Remote Sensing, Distributed Computing, BigData and 3D Epidemiology:  Today’s Public Health Opportunity, focussed on ways that 3D spatial data can revolutionize our understanding of environmental DNA and disease pathology, particularly in urban environments.

 

Abstract: Recent advances in remote sensing, drones, distributed computing, bigdata, and environmental DNA offer an unprecedented opportunity to push epidemiology beyond its traditional, two-dimensional (i.e. map-based) approach and harness the full availability and power of three-dimensional data and novel investigation methods to explore such data. This talk will present an extremely technology-specific vision for achieving this. Examples of the potential usefulness of this approach will be demonstrated with respect to three scenarios:  (1) avian flu, (2) asthma, and post-flooding fecal contamination. The current state of the art of the component technologies will be presented as well as the remaining challenges for their seamless integration

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US-Russia International Symposium on Geotechnical Engineering

On May 17-18th at the US-Russia International Symposium on Geotechnical Engineering in St. Petersburg, Professor Laefer spoke on Vertical Data Integration for Tunnelling and met with leaders in geotechnology from both the US and Russia. She was also delighted to take part in excursions to visit underground construction projects as well as a flood protection project in Kronstadt, and to tour the city more broadly. 

At the symposium, the heads of the two delegations Professor V.A.Ilyichev and Professor Jean-Louis Briaud agreed to further cooperation between the national societies working in geotechnology in the US and Russia over the coming three years.

To read more: http://www.spbgasu.ru/en/news/3919/

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Kavli Futures Symposium: Sensing the City

Hosted by the Urban Modeling Group’s Prof. Debra Laefer, and the Director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, Prof. Steven Koonin, this week’s Kavli Futures Symposium: Sensing the City saw academia, industry, and community stakeholders come together to explore the multidisciplinary topic of sensing in cities. Speakers from across the US and beyond came together for a closed workshop to discuss the challenges and opportunities presented by emerging urban sensing innovations, before sharing their insights with the wider public through an open symposium on the second day of the event.  Key questions emerged around privacy, sustainability, and the ways that researchers determine what data to collect and how to collect it. 

The Urban Modeling Group looks forward to sharing video of some of the day’s events as it becomes available.

 

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Sunset Park Flyover Completed with Over 300 Experiments

After over a year of planning and working with the NYC Government, the Urban Modeling Group yesterday undertook a landmark aerial data collection over 1km2 of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Working with Tuck Mapping Solutions, Inc., the Urban Modeling Group collected imagery, hyperspectral, and extremely high resolution LiDAR data reaching densities greater than 500pts/m2 over a 1km2 study area in Brooklyn, NY. For the first time in the United States, all three sensors were flown concurrently on a rotary platform with a custom flight path designed using genetic algorithms to find the most optimal path to reduce occlusions and maximize vertical facade capture. 

The sensors on board were:
1. LMS Q680i for LiDAR
2. microCASI 1920 for hyperspectral
3. Leica RCD30 for imagery

In addition to the data collected over the existing urban environment, the Urban Modeling Group also deployed over 300 ground truthing experiments in the data collection area. These experiments will provide foundational data for exploring remote sensing capabilities in terms of spatial resolution, materials identification, and much more. 

The Urban Modeling Group looks forward to a public release of the data in the coming months and is open to possible collaborations and/or data sharing arrangements.

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GTWF Collaborating and Thriving Workshop at IFCEE 2018

The Urban Modeling Group’s Prof. Laefer was delighted to take part as a panelist in the GTWF Collaborating and Thriving Workshop at IFCEE 2018 last week. Prof. Laefer has long been passionate about improving academic and career opportunities for women and looks forward to continued opportunities to collaborate with the vibrant women of the GTWF.

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LiDAR Data Featured in February National Geographic

Prof. Laefer’s Dublin LiDAR data is featured in the February issue of National Geographic. Pick up a copy to see the whole story or visit the NYU Spatial Data Repository to check out the data.

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Long Distance Network Facilitation Seed Grant Awarded to Prof. Laefer

The Connecting Women Faculty in Geotechnical Engineering project, a partnership between Syracuse University, Drexel University, and the University of Michigan, has awarded Prof. Debra Laefer a seed grant for long distance network facilitation amongst women in geotechnical engineering. The grant will enable Prof. Laefer to plan and build an on-line database for the engineering community and the general public to identify women with expertise in geotechnical engineering. Similar to “Women Also Know Stuff”, in the political science community, this new tool will help everyone from conference planners to contractors to identify highly skilled women to fulfill their needs for geotechnical expertise.

Prof. Laefer is delighted to collaborate with the Deep Foundations Institute’s Mary Ellen Bruce Large on this exciting project, combining their many years of involvement in the geotechnical community to support and elevate the many talented women working in geotechnical engineering today.