We participated in force in the 20th University of Southern California Undergraduate Symposium for Scholarly and Creative Work. Our contributions included:
- Classification System for National Park Sites Based on Nightscape Lighting Profiles (Harrison Knapp and Benjamin Banet)
- Spatiotemporal Analysis of Lighted Boats at Night (Eliza Gutierrez-Dewar)
- A Photographic Light Pollution Assessment Across Western Public Lands (Benjamin Banet)
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Characterization of Spatial and Spectral Distribution of Outdoor Lighting at Wrigley Marine Science Center (Camille Verendia, Lisa Cortright, and Jasper McEvoy)
Amanda Gilmore, who worked this semester on habitat modeling for invasive lionfish, presented her ongoing work with our colleague Dr. An-Min Wu.
Awards were won. Eliza took the 2nd Place award in physical sciences for her work analyzing squid boat lights off the coast of California, while Ben won Honorable Mention for his field work documenting light pollution on public lands across much of the American West with hemispherical photography.
Acknowledgments are in order. Funding from the Undergraduate Research Associates Program, Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship, and Student Opportunities for Undergraduate Research (all at USC) made this work possible. We also had funding from the National Park Service via the Southern California Research Learning Center for part of Ben’s work (the part in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Channel Islands National Park). Eliza’s work was made possible by collaboration with Chris Elvidge at NOAA, who provided the outputs of their boat detection algorithm. The Wrigley Institute and Wrigley Marine Science Center supported the lighting assessment there with travel, room, and board. Photos from the symposium and awards dinner are by Susan Kamei; I was at the AAG annual meeting.
Travis Longcore 