October 2018 Meeting Recap

Participants of the October 2018 meeting in Savannah pose with a figure of Georgia Tech's mascot Buzz
Left to right: Lalith Polepeddi (Georgia Tech), Nick Deffley (City of Savannah), Russell Clark (Georgia Tech), Randall Mathews (CEMA), Buzz (Georgia Tech), Kim Cobb (Georgia Tech), David Donnelly (City of Savannah), Jayma Koval (Georgia Tech), David Anderson (CEMA), Tim Cone (Georgia Tech)

The Smart Sea Level Sensors team had their third workshop at GT-Savannah on October 26, 2018, which included a day of meetings with community stakeholders on October 25 to further refine the project’s goals, timelines, and network of partners.

On October 25, a Georgia Tech team consisting of Dr. Kim Cobb, Dr. Russ Clark, Jayma Koval, Tim Cone, and Lalith Polepeddi met with a diverse set of community stakeholders to identify potential areas of collaboration. The team met with science teachers Grace Herrington and Tom Maty at Jenkins High School to discuss opportunities for students to learn valuable hands-on STEM skills by assembling sea level sensors. The Georgia Tech group joined with team member Randall Mathews from the Chatham Emergency Management Agency, to speak with National Weather Service meteorologists Ron Morales and Blair Holloway about the project’s potential with respect to monitoring a variety of weather-related hazards. Lastly, the team met with Lizann Roberts from the Coastal Georgia Indicators Coalition to discuss health-related applications of the sensor network, including temperature and air quality monitors.

Members from the Georgia Tech team visiting project partners at Jenkins High School
Georgia Tech team members visiting project partners at Jenkins High School.

Georgia Tech team members visiting project partners at Jenkins High School. On Oct 26, the Smart Sea Level Sensors team held a workshop to update the community stakeholders about refinements in the design of the sea level sensors technology, review existing and planned sensor deployment locations, and showcase preliminary data recorded by sensors across Hurricanes Florence and Michael. The team also presented preliminary results from a new high-resolution coastal ocean model constructed by Georgia Tech’s Dr. Emanuele Di Lorenzo and collaborators specifically for the Chatham County coast. Lalith Polepeddi shared some early prototypes for data visualization platforms designed by Georgia Tech undergraduates as part a year-long course in computer science.

The next workshop for the Smart Sea Level Sensors team is scheduled for January 29 in Savannah. For more information about the project and related upcoming events, please contact Kim Cobb at kcobb@gatech.edu.