academia

SCALE Winter 2022 Cruise

Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone
2022

I had the privilege to work on SCALE Winter 2022 expedition to the Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone aboard the SA Agulhas II between the 11th and the 31st of July. I was involved in several activities:

• Collected data for the 3D reconstruction of retrieved pancake ice using LiDAR and depth cameras for my MSc work
• Collaborated with the University of Melbourne and the University of East Anglia in the collection LiDAR data of the open ocean and waves in ice
• Assisted with UCT ice-tethered buoy (SHARC buoy) deployment operations.
• Collected stereo camera data of buoy deployments and retrievals for the purposes of defining the shape and size of the individual pancakes that the buoys were deployed on

Read more about my involvement from the South African National Antarctic Programme SANAP Buoy Team.

IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)

Pasadena, USA
2023

Presented an oral presentation at IGARSS 2023 in Pasadena in session TH3.R16: Observation of Sea Ice Properties. Additionally, a short paper was published in the conference proceedings. This describes my data collection and preliminary processing for my MSc thesis on 3D reconstructions of pancake sea ice performed on the SA Agulhas II during SCALE Winter 2022. Additionally, I attended "Tutorial HD-02 Getting Started with SAR: Understanding, Accessing and Working with Synthetic Aperture Radar Data".

Southern Ocean Observating System (SOOS) Symposium

Tasmania, Australia
2023

A poster presentation titled "In-situ Static Sea Ice Imaging Using LiDAR and Depth Camera Technology" for the SOOS Symposium 2023 in Tasmania, focusing on the in-situ measurement techniques of my MSc thesis. This was presented in person by my supervisor, Robyn Verrinder, on my behalf. The abstract is found on page 190 of the handbook linked above. This poster was later presented at the 2024 MARIS ECR conference and won Best Poster.

International Conference on Southern Hemisphere Meteorology and Oceanography (ICSHMO) 2024

Cape Town, South Africa
2024

Co-authored a poster titled "Antarctic Marginal Ice Zone Sea Ice Floe Field Characteristic Extraction Using Ship-Based LiDAR" presented by fellow MSc researcher David Sephton-Poultney. This work describes the analysis of LiDAR scans of sea ice fields taken on the SCALE Winter 2022 cruise.

7th South African National Antarctic Programme Symposium

Kwalata Game Lodge, Gauteng, South Africa
2025

Presented my completed work as part of a group presentation from the UCT MARIS group with my supervisor Robyn Verrinder.

APECS Member and Volunteer

Association of Polar Early Career Scientists of South Africa (APECSSA)
2022–2026

I am part of APECSSA, which hosts a number of online and in-person events for early-career polar researchers. It is a wonderful organisation with many helpful resources and social media posts.