Join a collaborative research project between NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) and NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC) focused on understanding how coral structure changes following major disturbance events. This project examines the long-term erosion rates and structural degradation of Acropora palmata colonies that died during the 2023 mass bleaching event in the Florida Keys.
Researchers have used high-resolution large-area imagery techniques to monitor 20 dead coral colonies across three time points: 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years post-bleaching. These data were used to generate detailed three-dimensional (3D) models of each colony to quantify structural change through time.
The intern will assist in processing and analyzing the 3D models using the software Agisoft Metashape, CloudCompare, and Meshmixer. Responsibilities will include aligning the 3D models over time, extracting quantitative structural metrics, and helping synthesize results for scientific publication. The intern will gain hands-on experience with cutting-edge coral monitoring techniques, work with real-world datasets evaluating the effects of acute thermal stress events, contribute directly to research informing coral reef resilience, and be included as a co-author on a scientific publication.
This project is ideal for students interested in coral reef ecology, geospatial analysis, photogrammetry, and environmental data science.