My name is Tangee Beverly. I am a freshman at Elizabeth City State University in Elizabeth City, North Carolina with a major in computer science. I attended at Bertie High School a school for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Attending the STEM school gave me a good foundation for pursuing a technology career. There were many math and computer classes. In my senior year the development of apps caught my attention. The main goal was to do as much research and learn information about the works of building an app. A club, that was Tech Buddies, is for students who were aim at student’s degree in a STEM field. The director of the club introduced us to online coding website. After practicing with coding, I knew that programming would be what my future career will be. That is how programming tied into my research on app building.

I am a member of the Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research (CERSER) program, directed by the principle investigator, Dr. Linda B. Hayden. The goal of this program is to develop and implement innovative and applicable education and research collaborations centered on ice sheets, coastal, ocean, and marine research. By being a part of the CERSER program I have been able to use learn new skills that can be used in my future internships.

During my academic spring semester, I contributed to a team research project with CERSER.  Our team did research on Producing 3D point cloud and digital elevation models through the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (U.A.V), Historic St. Luke’s Church case study. We used the U.A.V to take images of the historical landmark and with these images were processed with the Pix4d software to produce an image mosaic of the gridded area, a 3D point cloud and digital elevation model (DEM), and finally a 3D model of the historic structure. In April 2016, I attended the ADMI conference in Winston-Salem. There were representatives and guest speakers from different companies such as Intel and Yahoo. Throughout the course of these sessions, the presenters shared information about their company and explained internships that were offered. I also attended the IEEE Joint meeting with GRSS and WIE at NC State University. At this meeting, Melba Crawford spoke on the ongoing remote sensing project and its results. I was also able to tour the campus and the Center of Geospatial Analysis.

My goal is to get a bachelor’s in computer science from Elizabeth City State University, and further my education to get my masters. The program of CERSER is a great opportunity will lead me to opportunities to my further career.