Davidson Academy student Julianna S. was selected as a NASA intern for the STEM Enhancement in the Earth Sciences program this summer! At this nationally competitive program, sponsored by NASA’s Texas Space Grant Consortium, Julianna led a team of five NASA interns to develop a research project that compares four machine learning models abilities to predict the derivatives of mosquito abundance and vector competence.
Their work could help streamline the mosquito monitoring process — which currently relies on expensive, government-funded fieldwork that provides retrospective understanding to public health officials — by forecasting critical information on the development of local mosquito populations using remote sensing data. Julianna’s team was selected to present their research at the NASA SEES Science Symposium to an audience of 300-500 NASA scientists and associated guests.