Hello, my name is Justin Deloatch and I am currently a second year graduate student, attending Elizabeth City State University located in North Carolina with a major in Mathematics and a concentration in Remote Sensing. As an undergraduate and graduate research student for the Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research (CERSER) under Dr. Linda Hayden, I have received numerous opportunities to attend conferences, training sessions, seminars, and received loads of research experiences. Upon graduation, it is my desire to obtain a Ph.D. in Remote Sensing utilizing my computer science and mathematical skills and advancing my education once more.

Five years ago I made a goal to be very competitive in the Computer Science and Remote Sensing field through having experience in research, presentations, workshops, and an overall knowledge of their applications. I believe that I can achieved that goal with the help of CERSER. CERSER has exposed me to current and future improvements in technology, which will help me to accomplish my goals and gain valuable experiences that I need for a career development.

As a freshman I also had the opportunity to complete a research project. This project was based on the reconstruction of the CERSER website and the updating of the tiff images from the satellite database. First we had to find out the flaws of the old website and figure out what we wanted to do with the information. In this process we had to create a storyboard which is basically the layout of the webpage. When redesigning the website we use Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) as an easier way to format the website. We also had to update over 1,000 pictures that were from the satellite image database.

During my first internship at ECSU I was a member of the Polar Grid Gateway Team. We used Adobe Dreamweaver as the development tool to create individual portlets and RSS feeds using iGoogle as a portal. GeoRSS namespaces were used to generate points into Google maps. Within Google Maps each point displayed information using HTML tags for designated students including name, location, and an image. In relationship to the Polar Grid project the tags created would have included the radar data, a transformed image, the coordinate locations of taken data, the date, and other various attributes concerning the research of the project. A second portlet was also created using the framework of the previous gadget. This portlet displays the upcoming events for the NIA web site.

My second internship was with the Ronald McNair Program. We were giving the task of writing a program in Java to simulate a robot navigating itself around obstacles. This was done by giving the robot three methods of choosing which way it wanted to go. These three methods were a stack, queue, and a priority queue. Based off the results that we had, the priority queue was the fastest way of getting from point A to point B.

For my third internship I had the opportunity to conduct successful research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for 10 weeks. The objective of this research was to define the spectral reflectance characteristics of ship wakes at high spatial and spectral resolution, for purposes of identifying maritime traffic using optical remote sensing data. Hyperspectral images of the Coastal Ocean (HICO) was flown over the Hawaiian coast in April 2010. Hyperspectral images of the wake produced by the United States Coast Guard Cutter, traveling at speed of 7, 14, and 21 knots were acquired. The data reveals that the spectral reflectance of the wake is distinct from that of the background. Data indicated that the reflectance properties of the wake are different to the background but that the degree of difference decreases as spatial resolution increases. These results provided how similar instruments operating from low Earth orbit can be expected to successfully detect the presence of ships based on the wake they produce.

Remote Sensing, Mathematics, and Computer Science, these are the fields that I have chosen. They will most definitely challenge my mind about the concepts and technology that have been brought into this world. As I embark on my upcoming future endeavors, I look forward to increasing my knowledge in these fields and accomplishing one more of my educational goals, a Doctoral degree. I would feel honored and will strive to meet all expectations when I graduate from ECSU in 2013.