Labiba (Bella) Tasnim
DARE Project: Data Analytics in Environmental Applications
Program(s) of Study: Information Technology
Project Supervisor: Peter A. Khaiter
From a technical perspective, I learned so much, from ecological modelling concepts, satellite imagery and remote sensing to understanding how to critically evaluate existing literature and adapt different methodologies to our own dataset to better model and understand coral reef ecosystems.
On a personal level, think the biggest lesson I learned was patience. As someone who is very type A, I naturally like having a plan and clear expectations, but research really did challenge that mindset, there was many moments when our results were not what i expected and when our direction changed after discussions, over time I realized that those really did me to trust the research process as they always led me to think beyond a box I had kept myself under and given me the opportunity to explore different perspectives instead of searching for one "right" experience.
Project Description:
My project area of focus was the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS) where we explored the very many environmental and ecological factors that influence the health of coral reefs and how they could be quantified. Through the research, I gained a solid and clear understanding of the current decline of the MBRS and the complex interactions that contribute to it, including the rising sea temperatures, coral cover, macroalgae and other environmental stressors. I also learned about concepts such as phase shifts and hysteresis, which helped explain why some reefs are able to recover from disturbances while others remain in degraded states. The project began with deep and extensive literature reviews where I explored some existing research on coral reef ecology, remote sensing, GIS, and quantitative methods used to assess reef health. This gave me a strong foundation in the different approaches researchers use to monitor coral reefs and helped guide the direction of our own work. As our project progressed we wanted to develop two main datasets, one containing environmental variables and the other containing ecological and core related variables. I helped prep and organize and compare these datasets so that could be integrated into a single modelling framework. A major part of the project involved exploring how different metrics and variables could be combined and weighted to create a more comprehensive way of quantifying coral reef condition, rather than relying on a single indicator. Throughout this process, I worked closely with my research team, discussed different modelling approaches, and presented my findings during our weekly meetings.The Dean’s Award for Research Excellence (DARE) - Undergraduate enables our students to meaningfully engage in research projects supervised by LA&PS faculty members. Find out more about DARE.