NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research (OER) is the only federal organization dedicated to exploring the ocean for the purpose of discovery and the advancement of knowledge. OER uses a number of tools to complete this mission, including NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer – the only U.S. federal vessel dedicated to exploring our largely unknown ocean. From mapping and characterizing previously unseen seafloor to collecting and disseminating information about ocean depths, OER missions helps to establish a foundation of information and to fill data gaps. Each Expedition generates terabytes of data that include include seafloor bathymetry and video imagery. The interpretation of these vast amount of data is challenging. This internship project will focus on developing methods and techniques to produce summary products from these and ancillary data sets. Specific objectives of this internship may include:

1) Familiarization with OER oceanographic data collection tools, methods, data archives. These data sets cover a wide variety of oceanographic data including geophysical data collected by state of art multibeam/single beam sonars, video and imagery data, and associated annotations from a 6000 m rated remote operated vehicle (ROV) and oceanographic sensors;

2) Develop a GUI/database application to efficiently/automatically summarize data collected during exploration expeditions;

3) Develop and refine the process for video analysis specifically exploring machine learning methods to generate annotations and assess human generation annotation for their quality and accuracy; and

4) Develop a standard set of “uses”/ metrics that can be automated and included as part of cruise reports /dive summaries as a way to provide a preliminary characterization of sites visited.

Student would be given the opportunity to participate in an expedition (most likely from shore using telepresence technology) to inform their project.