Meet our summer technicians!

Auggie Tupper
Auggie is a rising junior at MSU, and is working with us this summer thanks to a generous grant from the Montana Space Grant Consortium (MSGC). He grew up in Helena, and is passionate about finding innovative ways to connect people to their place in the natural world. His background as a soccer star, scholar, and leader in high school will aid in his success this summer as he applies AI for habitat mapping and restoration efforts.

Grace Campbell

Grace worked with YERC this spring semester to manage data sets and code graphics using RStudio, and we are thrilled to have her with us this summer as well! She is also able to work with us, thanks to MSGC. She brings passion and brain power as she takes on converting YERC’s long-term vegetation datasets - including remote sensing data from satellites - to prescriptions of smart land-use planning and habitat restoration.

Grace and Auggie will be developing a model of vegetation community composition and height using NASA’s Landsat satellite database in combination with USGS’s airborne LIDAR data. They will be ground-truthing their model by flying YERC’s drone and taking real images of vegetation to compare against their model. We plan to integrate the resulting habitat mapping products into the LandHealth Dashboard, for stakeholders to assess the composition, plant health, and land-use types of their land. Both technicians are excited to spend a mixture of time outside in the field, and inside working on software/data management. They will be learning a lot this summer to advance YERC’s goals and their own career paths. We are excited to nurture and witness their growth!