Back to Utqiaġvik, This Time with NRL

From June 5–13, 2026, I was back in Utqiaġvik, Alaska — this time working with the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). I’m spending this summer as a Summer Faculty Fellow at NRL, and this trip was the field component of that project.

Hosted by Wes Moses at NRL, we flew hyperspectral drone surveys over melt ponds to measure their optical properties, paired with ground-based measurements of surface reflectance and melt water properties. The goal is to better connect what we see from above — whether from drones or satellites like Sentinel-2 — to what’s actually happening in and around individual melt ponds on the ice.

More to come as the analysis develops this summer!