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8 - Student Research Spotlight - Exploring Coastal Science through the Tech and Entrepreneurial Lens of EJ & Jacob
6 Plays1 year ago
In this 8th episode of Going Coastal, hosts Jon Miller and Deb Fernandes sit down with young coastal engineering innovators Jacob Stasiewicz & EJ Rainville to explore the world where tech, research, and entrepreneurship collide. They dive deep into how they are shaping the future of coastal science and technology, sharing valuable insights on career paths, the power of creativity, and advice for students and professionals alike.
From academic research to startup ventures, this episode shows that there's more than one way to make an impact in the coastal field.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guests
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome back to the Going Coastal podcast, the podcast of the students and new professionals in the coastal field. I'm hosted by myself, John Miller, Marisa Torres, and Deb Fernandez. Deb, you want to say hi? Hi, everyone.
00:00:24
Speaker
So this month is an exciting episode for us. We always get a little bit more amped up when we have students to talk to. So we're recent graduates to talk to, I should say. um Today we have two special guests. um we're With us today are EJ Rainville, who is a graduate student at the University of Washington.
00:00:45
Speaker
as well as Jacob Stasowitz, a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina Wilmington, actually one of the first bachelors in coastal engineering classes, I think, from UNCW.
Backgrounds in Coastal Engineering
00:00:55
Speaker
So we'd like to welcome both of them to the show. So welcome, guys. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for having us, John. So as we do with all of our episodes, we would like to start by asking our guests to give us a little bit of an intro to themselves, a little bit about their backgrounds, kind of who they are, where they where they are, how they got there. ah So we'll start with EJ. How about you first? Great. Yeah. My name's ah EJ Rainville. I'm a PhD student at the University of Washington Applied Physics Lab. And I've been working on wave buoy development and transport of buoyant objects. And so, yeah, my PhD and masters have been both at the University of Washington.
00:01:39
Speaker
ah My undergrad is from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. And yeah. Very cool. And Jacob, how about yourself? Yeah. So my name's ah Jacob Stasewitz. I'm currently working for a startup called Sediment Science. I'm the lead engineer working for the company. um I graduated from UNCW in 2022 with a degree in co undergrad degree in coastal engineering. Very cool. Well, it's great to have both of you on the show today. um I think one of the things that's really cool about this is we tried to put this particular student research spotlight together is we were kind of searching for
00:02:18
Speaker
People that were involved on sort of the instrumentation side with their research. And so I think this would be an interesting ah kind of matching of of two guests. So you've never met each other before. So hopefully you'll learn a little bit more about each other as as we get comfortable here kind of discussing.
00:02:35
Speaker
some of your research. So um let me start with, ah go back to EJ. So obviously you're a graduate student now. um How did you first get into coastal stuff?
Pathways into Coastal Engineering
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, so I started ah working in a lab in undergrad. um I went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, and I studied mechanical engineering. And I was looking around for for some positions and getting involved in research. And I found a a lab there working with ah Ryan Walter, who is studying sort of estuary and processes and internal waves.
00:03:12
Speaker
and it just It looks super interesting and they did a lot of dive work, and I got to spend time in the field and so I was really interested in the ah design of the instruments and the actual implementation how do you put stuff in the water and get involved in the lab through there and it was a cool, um cool way to apply the engineering ah training into an interesting ocean realm yeah and then just have kind of continued on since then. Cool. um That's that's a kind of mirrors, I think, a lot of what we hear in that the coastal field is not necessarily something that people start out thinking that they're going to go into. It's more they fall into it by accident. It's a random circumstance where they
00:03:59
Speaker
come across a job listing or an opportunity for a research program. And you know a lot of people love the coast and they kind of get that spark of inspiration. Hey, we can I can apply my engineering skills to this really unique field. So um that's kind of interesting to kind of hear your experiences getting into Coastal. um Jacob, how about yourself? So um I started going to school at UNCW in 2018.
00:04:28
Speaker
It was never even crossed my mind that I wanted to go into an engineering field at all. I never really had the grades. I was never the strongest in math. I was planning on going for environmental science or marine bio. I was actually working in an aquaculture lab at UNCW at a shellfish research hatchery. And then in 2018, about two months into my first semester in college, Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina. And so it was like,
00:04:58
Speaker
wildly destructive. um Especially for me, I grew up a lot in eastern North Carolina, sailing a lot, and seeing all these communities just get completely destroyed by this hurricane. ah For example, during hurricane cleanup um down there, you would see sailboats wedged like 20 feet up in the trees, storm surge going to like the second floor on houses, especially around like New Bern, Arapahoe area.
00:05:21
Speaker
And then when I got back to school from a five-week break from the hurricane, because school was closed, um they announced that they're starting a coastal engineering undergrad major. So I was like, oh, that sounds perfect. And that's kind of where I started with my coastal engineering journey. That's kind of interesting. the yeah it's it's It's actually really funny because on the one hand, you have EJ, who knew he wanted to be an engineer and was kind of following that path and kind of fell into the coastal.
00:05:51
Speaker
And then Jacob, on the other hand, was interested in the coastal, but didn't really think about the engineering side of it, and then kind of found it. So you you both sort of came around to it from different sides of it, but you both ended up sort of in a very similar place, which is really cool and really interesting. And I think for, again, the students and new professionals out there, we always say that there's no one right way to do things, right? So you can come about you can come to the same conclusion or or the same sort of career path from multiple different directions, and we often see that. so It's kind of, without planning it this way, it's interesting to see that you two have both kind of come to it from different perspectives. And I would say, definitely Jacob, your experience matches mine in that, you know, obviously I'm much older than you are, but for me, it was actually the October 1991 storm that happened up here in in New Jersey. um
00:06:44
Speaker
i have I have memories, it was a nor'easter, it wasn't a hurricane, but ah certainly up here in New Jersey, it was massively destructive to a lot of our oceanfront communities, beaches, boardwalks, et cetera. And i I remember just watching the news footage and being awestruck by like the power of the ocean and actually seeing a professor on TV talking about you know the unique aspects of the waves and the type of damage that was being caused. And I thought to myself, that's really, really cool.
00:07:14
Speaker
But I figured it was like a limiting limited number of opportunities in that direction. So I didn't necessarily start out. I started as a civil engineer, but that image or that those that thought of working along the coast never left me. And then as I graduated and decided to go to graduate school, kind of picked that back up and that inspiration kind of stayed with me.
00:07:36
Speaker
So I don't know, Deb, have we have we ever explored with you how you actually came into Coles? I'm just kind of curious if your experiences match either one of our guests.
00:07:47
Speaker
um A little bit, yes. It matches Jacob in the sense that I'm not really good at math either, but I was always passionate about it. And then I actually grew up in a landlocked country.
00:08:02
Speaker
But I've always been really interested in it and then I actually had a master's in oceanography. And then I took a class in coastal engineering and I was like, oh my God, this is so much cooler. I love this. A lot of like mathematics in it or physics, but I was like, I don't care. Like I want to do this. So that's how I ended up in this field.
00:08:22
Speaker
I think that's definitely a trait that is common to many of the people that we talk to is that passion,
The Rewards of Coastal Engineering
00:08:27
Speaker
right? I think and that's the the really cool thing about the field of coastal engineering, science, even management, whatever whatever it is, is that you know it lights a fire under most people that do it. And once they find it, yeah it's, I would say, one of the more rewarding professions, I think, that you can have. So I think that's kind of that's kind of cool.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I wanted to ask. So Jacob, you said you grew up in North Carolina. Yes. Right. So you were always like by to see. So I grew up in Raleigh, which is about two hours from the coast. But my parents own a beach house at Emerald Isle. I also always went to camp up in um Oriental North Carolina to a sailing camp.
00:09:10
Speaker
So I've kind of always grown up along coastal North Carolina. You know, I was a big fisher surfer, sailor, and I don't know why it never crossed my mind until I saw the destruction from the hurricane that like, oh, this might be my calling. But I'm glad I'm glad it sad to say I'm glad Hurricane Florence hit my freshman year of of college because it really changed my my life trajectory.
00:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, it does make sense. Like you don't realize how much you value the beach and how much like how fried jelly can be until something happens to it. Absolutely. Yeah. Seeing places I grew up that have just been destroyed beyond recognition was like extremely eye-opening. Like my first thought was like, okay, how did we not know this was coming? And then how are we so poorly prepared for it?
00:09:59
Speaker
Like, I mean, ah yeah, like 50 feet of beach gone just along like rivers in North Carolina. It was it was crazy. I bet it must have been insane. um And what about you, AJ? I don't think you said where you're from. Yeah, so I'm similar to you. I grew up in a landlocked area. I grew up in a small town in Colorado, Evergreen, Colorado. And yeah, I grew up landlocked, had visited the ocean some, but hadn't spent much time. um But yeah, when I was in high school, there was a program to go ah to Hawaii for a couple of weeks on this short class to kind of learn about oceanography. um So it was two weeks and more so more focused on the biology and ecology side. So doing fish identification and some geology and things like that, which was was awesome.
00:10:56
Speaker
Oh my God, it sounds like a dream. And I bet it was so beautiful. There were like reefs out there, so you must have seen very cool stuff. Yeah, yeah it was really it was really great. um And so that kind of sparked um this this interest in in the ocean initially, ah but I didn't really know anybody in the in the research field. So then when I moved to to California for undergrad and found that lab, it was this really cool um I don't know, I just found it really cool that people were doing this type of ocean research and, you know, felt very like a national geographic to see, you know, people are um doing this kind of research and <unk> it's really cool to be a part of. Yeah. Okay. Super interesting again, two different paths, but you kind of ended up in the same field. I think it's awesome.
00:11:46
Speaker
Yeah. And as you kind of as you're in the field longer, you you'd come across a lot of people that have a similar experience. I think sometimes there's a thought that if you didn't grow up at the beach that this is not for you. And and you know I would say that my advisor, um I was fortunate enough to have Bob Dean as one of my advisors and he was one of the most famous coastal engineers in the world or perhaps the most famous.
00:12:09
Speaker
um but he grew up in Wyoming. right so you know who knew Who knows where you're going to ultimately end up? and you know I've had multiple students,
Education and Early Projects
00:12:19
Speaker
you know very similar to your story, EJ. I had a student from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, so sort of the middle of Pennsylvania and you know didn't even know that This field existed came to Stevens as a civil engineer and once he found out that he could do coastal stuff and kind of you know, he got hooked and You know, he's still a practicing coastal engineer today um So that story is is is just as familiar as the story of somebody growing up at the coast that you know always knew they wanted to pursue a coastal science or or engineering
00:12:56
Speaker
pathway. So let's talk ah let's talk a little bit about um your sort of academic, I guess, backgrounds or pathways. so ah Jacob, again, I'm a little bit um interested in ah the UNCW program. I'm aware that they have the undergraduate program in Coastal Engineering. I think that's really cool. It's actually something that we're considering starting here at Stevens. ah So how was it what was it like to be one of those initial um ah students in that cohort? Yeah, so um from everybody else I've talked to, it was a lot different, very interesting. um So two pieces of background for me that will kind of help you understand the path I took. So I've always known I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Both my parents were entrepreneurs.
00:13:45
Speaker
And I always knew that was kind of my my life path um paired with the Coastal Engineering starting freshman year. And I also knew that I did not want to be an academic. So ah that's kind of decided my undergrad path. For UNCW, the Coastal Engineering program was really special because it was extremely small when it started. So we had a lot of opportunities to work with professors. um I worked with three professors total. I think I started doing my research The summer after my freshman year, um I started working with Ryan Mieres on a project called Seahawk. It was a camera we could deploy to put on piers and beachfront properties during storms to capture time lapses during the day and night, and then um hopefully be able to model kind of where the wave run-up is. um So there's a few more projects I did. um One was an optical backscatter sensor.
00:14:41
Speaker
um working with Phil Bresnahan and um ah I think the Coast Lab. And that's just looking at particulates in the water. And then where like my current path started is it was 2019 and machine learning like AI stuff was kind of like getting big in the news. Like it was becoming a buzzword. So I was like, Hey, I kind of want to learn this.
00:15:05
Speaker
um I found a professor at UNCG named Evan Goldstein, and we started working on a camera to do grain size analysis from images, just using machine learning methods. So those are the three projects I worked on during my undergrad, but the it was initially called SamCam was the the big one that I focused on.
00:15:28
Speaker
And the program was really nice because a lot of students in it had experiences similar to me, where they worked with multiple different professors on a few different projects. They kind of got to feel around um whether they wanted to do ah modeling or device development or whatnot. But um yeah, it was it was a great experience. And like I said, it definitely is because the program was so small to start with, but had the right funding. then Very cool. um So let's yeah that's bounce back to EJ. So similarly, you've been involved in the instrumentation side of things, ah different than Jacob, but can you describe a little bit about how um how you were able to get involved in you know the programs that you've been involved in and in the research that you've done?
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. um So like I was saying a little bit earlier, I started an undergrad and in this lab. The first project I worked on was on measurements, looking at sediment suspension in ah in an estuary, um which was Morro Bay, and compare like kind of looking at this recent eelgrass die-off. And so we were thinking there was more sediment being suspended, and that could be contributing to some of this eelgrass die-off.
00:16:50
Speaker
So, part of that experiment was ah deploying and maintaining a lot of these sensors in the estuary, and that just sparked a bunch of interest. I stayed in that lab um for the rest of my time in in undergrad and worked on a few projects.
00:17:04
Speaker
and then I spent a summer as an intern or a summer student fellow at a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and there just just met a bunch of folks and I got involved in a few other projects and had talked with with a graduate student there at the time Astrid and she was working in Bob Pickard's lab and so they had a upcoming field project while I was there that was looking at overturning circulation in off of Cape Farewell in southern Greenland. And so I was able to get involved with that and learn about this instrumentation and and join them on this field project. um So I was there for a while and then came back to school, ah finished my undergrad and
00:17:51
Speaker
um And then sort of continued on. I actually took some time off after my undergrad and I found a job as a as a machinist and just got really interested in how you manufacture and and build these types of things. And then came back to to graduate school after that and joined ah this lab at the University of Washington that focuses on instrument development in particular wave buoys and sensors like that.
00:18:18
Speaker
and it's ah ah just sort of keeps evolving. It's interesting you did the the machinist job because as well with the undergrad I did um welding at the local community college just for the love of like building things. I was specifically focused on like aluminum welding for building all sorts of mounts for coastal engineering applications but yeah.
00:18:42
Speaker
That's neat. Awesome. yeah yeah i think ah I'm sure we share a lot of those interests. and It's a great place. you know You get to spend a lot of time trying to build different things and learn to use all the different tools and and use the shop. It's a great experience. I think that it's it's interesting that you both kind of have that hands-on experience.
Hands-on Skills and Fieldwork
00:19:05
Speaker
and you know I think a lot of people, particularly that are involved in the fieldwork aspect of coastal engineering,
00:19:11
Speaker
It's sort of an underrated skill to being able to work with your hands because you're out in the field, stuff always happens, things break. You need to have an understanding of you know how to fix things, how to well build things to start with and then ultimately fix them when things go wrong because unfortunately things always go wrong when you're doing field work.
00:19:31
Speaker
um But the flip side of that is that I also know a lot of coastal slash ocean engineers that ah are very not hands-on, right? They're the type of people that ah spend more time i in the either in the laboratory in the laboratory or you know doing numerical modeling or things like that. So there's a lot of different skill sets that ultimately come together to complement one another. um So it's really, that's ah another really cool aspect of Coastal is that you can do it being very hands-on, you can do it being not very much hands-on. There's even Coastal engineers that don't even, don't know how to swim, right? So it's just kind of weird to say, but you know, that's not necessarily a required skillset, right? um So EJ, I heard you say, talk a little bit about your ah various summer experiences and working in different labs. um
00:20:29
Speaker
you know and how that's kind of helped you and it wasn't just your i guess your straight academic journey that kind of helped you kind of end up where you are. Jacob, did you have any sort of experience similar to that or has it been more direct for you? um For me, it's my real journey didn't start until after my undergrad. so Ending my undergrad, I had been working on the the sand camera, a camera just to do grain size analysis from images because sieving sucks and no one likes it and it's annoying and loud and it takes too long and it feels archaic. We've been doing it for like 500 years as humans. It's it's ridiculous.
00:21:10
Speaker
But so near the end of my undergrad, um me and Evan Goldstein kind of had an idea that this could possibly be a product or like a startup company. So the last year of my undergrad, we focused on imaging and collecting sand samples from all North Carolina beaches to see kind of as a proof of concept, how well can this work? um And we ended up getting it down to around like five, 10 percent error, which was for us enough to decide like, OK, let's pursue this.
00:21:40
Speaker
So after my undergrad, I signed up for the National Science Foundation I-Corps, which is it's a program for students to take academic research and get it ready for being a business or pursuing the idea of it being a business. So the I-Corps for me, it was I think it was four months long. um I went to like 10 conferences. I interviewed like 130 people just asking them, you know, would this be something you're interested in? How would you use it? How do your current sample um sampling trips go for collecting sand? How long does it take? Is there like kind of anywhere where this would fit into your process? And from that I Corps, we found out, yes, there is. A bunch of people are interested in it. Everybody across the board really hates sieving.
00:22:31
Speaker
And if you don't save, you use like an $80,000, $100,000 laser diffraction or camcizer machine, something extremely ridiculous. um So after that, I ended up working for the Army Corps under an ORISE with ERDC on SandSnap.
00:22:49
Speaker
which is pretty much like the citizen science version of what we are what we are working on is you place a coin on the sand, snap a photo, um because ah we can find the size of the coin, we can tell the grain size distributions are the size of the sand. So I worked on that a year from last July until this July.
00:23:10
Speaker
And then um Evan Goldstein actually quit his job being a professor at UNC Greensboro. And ah we started this company, Sediment Science, together a few months ago. um And we're now on an SBIR phase one, so Small Business Innovation Research, um through NOAA kind of pursuing this idea. um So the past few months, I've been collecting sand samples every 50 to 100 miles of American coastline, ah continental United States. um So it's been fun, but it's been exhausting. So I've been going on a lot of trips. I've done the entire West Coast.
00:23:50
Speaker
Here in the past two months, I just finished doing Florida, Georgia, South Carolina. And then when I'm not on a trip, I'm just sieving sand for about 12 hours a day and working on the machine learning models in between the time. so Just out of curiosity, how much how much sand do you need when you take those samples?
00:24:09
Speaker
So I take a small world pack bag. It's literally about like a ah handful of sand. If you put both your hands together, it's it's not much. um We usually aim for like 200 to 300 grams um of sediment. So it's about a Ziploc bag full of sand. um And I usually try and get about five to 10 samples per every beach I stop.
00:24:34
Speaker
On the West coast, it's easy because the highway runs right along the coast. It's not ever crowded. You can get out of your car every 30 minutes and collect sand samples, but here on the East coast and Gulf coast, it's a lot harder. You got to pay for parking. You got to, you know, drive 30 minutes inland to get to a beach 20 minutes away. It's yeah. Or 20 miles away. Yeah, that's ridiculous. So I had a, I had a partially selfish reason for asking you the question because we actually, one of my, one of my,
00:25:04
Speaker
undergraduate students actually, one of her summer projects, we have a ah program at Stevens that pays undergrads to do research. And ah probably two years ago, I guess now, we had, I mean, sediment size is an important piece of information that is so basic, but is often lacking, right? So where you do have sediment size information. Oftentimes it's it's many years or even decades old. um And you know Because of beach nourishment and other factors, sediment size is not necessarily ah static. right It does change over time depending on the activities that are happening, natural processes, man-made processes. so We had had a a set of data for the entire New Jersey coast, um roughly about 100 stations along the New Jersey coast where
00:25:53
Speaker
oh We had ah a data set from the 1950s, a data set from I believe 2012. And so we we set out to ah reevaluate the sediment size. So when you say sieving sucks, ah my student would probably concur with that opinion. And more importantly, the graduate students in the office where the sieving was taking place would definitely agree because they weren't actually doing the analysis, but the shaking and the noise and the ah that whole process was quite distracting. But anyway, she had taken a bunch of samples and actually, at the time, ah the sand snap program was ah was kind of ah very very much being promoted. So ah she also took a series of sand snap ah photographs and did some comparisons between the sieve analysis and the and the sediment. So she's in the process of kind of compiling that
00:26:47
Speaker
But we do actually have a bunch of the the sand samples still sitting in a file cabinet here. So to the extent that it might be useful, I'd be happy to kind of figure out how to help you out.
00:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. More data is always better. And and like you said, the the problem we're really trying to solve is just the lack of data when it comes to beaches. like It's really a first order parameter that you need to have in a model when modeling how these beaches are going to change. And a lot of times, like you said, people are using data from 20 years ago, or they're going out and collecting five samples on a 10 mile beach and the idea we really have is that anybody should be able to do this that even if they're not a coastal engineer like for example someone in the local government could have one of these cameras and go out and take a hundred pictures six times a year which would be
00:27:43
Speaker
faster than sieving and the data would be a lot better for these models and hopefully make them more accurate. And also a lot of times these models, they'll only use like D50 or like the mean grain size. They don't really use D25, D75. So we're trying to push that forward. And then on top of all that, there's not a national database for grain size right now in the United States.
00:28:07
Speaker
So that's one thing that SandSnap's trying to build. um Again, I love SandSnap, but it's more of a citizen science project. It is good, but it's not the most accurate, something you would use for production or actual research. um It's more to teach people and get people interested in grain size analysis. So that's where we're going with um sediment science right now is trying to get people not only excited about it, but understanding that you don't have to use 20 year old data and you don't have to pay some firm five, $10,000 to go out there and collect 10 samples for you once a year. You can do it yourselves and get much more data at much higher spatial and temporal intervals.
00:28:55
Speaker
So ah carrying on on that theme, you know the the idea of instrumentation that costs $80,000 to do the sediment size analysis with the fancy equipment.
Innovation in Research Tools
00:29:08
Speaker
um you know The idea of collecting information on waves and currents using you know instrumentation that you know ADCPs can cost tens of thousands of dollars and even cheap wave gauges are relatively expensive. So EJ, some of the work that you're doing you know is is also making that
00:29:31
Speaker
data, I think a little bit more accessible to people. Is that correct? Yeah, exactly. That's a huge a huge part of it and being able to have a lot more sensors for ah for a similar cost. And so in my time in graduate school, the first project I worked on ah was the During Nearshore Events Experiment, where we had a field campaign at the Field Research Facility in in Duck.
00:29:55
Speaker
um And our lab ah had designed a lot of these small buoys. So they were a scaled down version of a different wave buoy that our our lab has made in the past. Those ones usually cost in the realm of $10,000 or more. And these ones are now $500 apiece. And they just, at the time, went in a little Nalgene water bottle.
00:30:19
Speaker
And so we made 50 of these little buoys and threw them out. And so the idea was to to measure waves and transport in the near shore and be able to have a lot more sensors and sort of have these ah dense arrays or coherent arrays of sensors to to measure the transport. um um I have a silly question, but what is a norogene water bottle?
00:30:47
Speaker
Oh, so it's ah so now it's a Nalgene water bottle. it's just ah It's just a brand, but it's like ah just a small small water bottle. They also say they're indestructible. Yeah, exactly. That was the idea. Thank you. That's for our non-American listeners.
00:31:05
Speaker
so so so We figured out who who who we need to hit up for sponsorship next time. Now, Gene, we're coming. ah um no that's It's interesting. and also Again, it's it's interesting. you know yes I'm old enough where I can appreciate you know the transition that I think is occurring. I think this is one of the more powerful things that's happening in the field of coastal.
00:31:30
Speaker
science and engineering is the fact that we're sort of transitioning from a science where we've always been data starved in the past because it's so hard to measure things along the coast. And so we're talking about not having enough sediment information, not having enough wave information, but with the advent of these types of sensors, with the advent of remote sensing applications, using satellite imagery, um drones, et cetera, we're very rapidly transitioning from data data poor to data rich. And so the whole machine learning and AI is playing a huge role in trying to help take that information that we all of a sudden have, right? And make make some some use of it. EJ, I'll just share the parallel to kind of what you're saying with with your sensors. I remember vividly when I was in graduate school, ah we had a guest speaker from Scripps come talk to us about essentially a wave drifter or and a wave drifter, a current drifter.
00:32:29
Speaker
um so it was a ah you know there's a lot of different um simplified versions of that that exists now. But back in the day, it was a very ornate, ah essentially GPS survey grade GPS system that was all um put into watertight ah a buoy that would drift along with the currents. And I believe at the time the cost for one of these drifters was it was definitely tens of thousands of dollars. And I remember sitting there and you know the idea was you would drop it out.
00:33:04
Speaker
and in advance of a storm and it would get pushed around and you'd be able to measure the currents as it moved around, but then there was always the, well, what happens if you can't find it, if it goes missing, right?
00:33:17
Speaker
You know, I was, you know, I sat there and at the point I was, he's one of the, you're jealous and he called, man, Scripps has got so much money. They can, they can afford to lose one of these things. And if I lost, you know, if I lost a thousand dollar instrument, I would be screwed. Right. So, uh, but that whole, that concept, right. It's important to have that, uh, I guess, initial development of, you know, a very expensive version of a current drifter, which then can essentially be downscaled. Right. And then there's a trade-off.
00:33:44
Speaker
in terms of that spatial resolution, the spatial coverage. you know And in some cases, the accuracy. In some cases, you don't need that high level ah of precision. You're much better off with many different measurement points that might be slightly less accurate, but ah you're getting a greater spatial cover. So you're getting more information and perhaps more useful information than a very you know precise measurement of current or even grain size as as as that would go. ah So these are both very, very, very cool
00:34:24
Speaker
directions of research. so ah So Jacob obviously has gone the entrepreneurship route and has looked to you just work with a startup to kind of commercialize or move this forward. um You're still in in graduate school, EJ. So what is what are you what's what's your vision? Are you goingnna are you to either going to continue the academic path? Do you think you're going to look to commercialize more of what you're doing? What's the what's the path?
00:34:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm hoping to graduate this upcoming year and right now just i'm pretty open to a lot of opportunities. ah You know, we'll see if if postdocs the right fit or or maybe some time in industry, I think. ah Yeah, I'm pretty open to to both options. so So right now I'm actually on a fellowship. So I'm a visiting researcher at the Norwegian Meteorological Institute. So I'm in Bergen now um and working on ah buoy development here with a department here.
00:35:24
Speaker
And so that's that's led to um some really great opportunities to meet some new folks and find other labs to work with. ah And so who knows, maybe something will come out of that as well. So that's actually an interesting, so so you've you've had a number of, you've already mentioned a number of different experiences that you've had and you've been able to go to different labs um and do these shorter periods of internships or or or deployments.
00:35:52
Speaker
um How have those opportunities, like how have you identified those opportunities? Do they come to you? Do you just, do you go out and look for them? Like, has it been conference? Like, how does, how does that happen? Yeah, a little bit of a combination. Um, but a lot of times, uh, I've had the most success with just sending an email. So, uh, kind of cold calls and saying hi to people, um, has, has been the most successful for me. Uh, this, this particular opportunity was a bit of a combination. So the.
00:36:24
Speaker
ah advisor that I'm working for here. I had met at a conference a couple years ago and we started a collaboration ah with between our two labs because we were both developing similar types of buoys, sort of cousins of each other. So they they complement each other and we were working on these collaborations between the labs. So I had met that advisor from there.
00:36:46
Speaker
And then through the University of Washington, there's a fellowship that i that I applied to that allows students to a study in a Scandinavian or Baltic country. um So I submitted a proposal to that and was able to to be funded and and asked to to work at this ah department here.
00:37:04
Speaker
um But as far as the, ah like, getting into graduate graduate school in particular, ah that was mostly cold calls so I just emailed around and talk to folks that seemed interesting, or I saw their papers, ah liked their work, or saw their website, and would just talk to them. And first few folks I talked to didn't really have space, and they were you know they would just say, hey, you know talk to this other person, or talk to this other person. They might have something. And eventually, I met my advisor, Jim Thompson, through through that chain. um And it's been a ah really great fit. um So I think the the cold calls have been the you just just saying hi, and that you're interested and in people's work.
00:37:48
Speaker
and that you've you know cared enough to to read some of their papers I think ah goes a long way. That's that's how I've experienced. I think that's pretty awesome and super inspiring too because it comes back to what we said in um other episodes that the people that are in the coastal field are like super easy to talk to. Totally.
00:38:11
Speaker
Yeah, they're not like it's even if they have like a high position, whatever, it's understandable that we can be nervous to talk to them, but they're like so easy to reach out and they'll be super happy to help you. um There is this sense of mentorship, kind of um I feel like, in this field.
Career Paths and Networking
00:38:29
Speaker
and I think this is really inspiring for our listeners here who don't know where to start and what it's as easy as contacting someone who wrote an article that you really like, as you said, for example. I think that's awesome.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah, and I have had a yeah similar experience. The people in the coastal realm have been really lovely to work with. People are are generally very friendly and easygoing. And even even when um you know if someone doesn't necessarily have space or have something They have been really great to point you in a direction of someone who might or might be a better fit. you know Maybe you describe what you're interested in and and someone just says, oh, you know I maybe don't have that right now or or something like that, but you know you should talk to this other person. they They could be a good fit. Yeah, because everyone knows each other in this field, too. So that's pretty awesome. Yeah, it is a small field. yeah
00:39:22
Speaker
Yeah, they always say you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, right? Right. Absolutely. So you have to take those opportunities. And you know as somebody who by nature is the podcast host tells everybody that he's an introvert, which is kind of awkward, right? So how does that happen? um But no, yeah actually, you know, growing through undergraduate and graduate school in particular, very much introverted and, you know, not comfortable in seeking out those conversations, but you know eventually getting to a point where you realize that you really need to kind of get over yourself and kind of get out there and and make those opportunities. and
00:39:59
Speaker
you know For me, it definitely took a little bit longer to kind of get to that point, but um obviously, you know I think it's great advice to be able to just go and to talk to people and to you know meet them at conferences and ah yeah just consistent with what everybody said. you know the The Coastal professionals tend to be really relaxed. I mean, I think it goes with you know so many, I guess you're talking about not everybody, but so many of the people that are in Coastal um ah grew up along the coast and there are fishers or surfers or you know sailors and you know anybody who's been around those types of people know that generally there's a pretty much ah as uh Deb says a chillness about them right they're very relaxed and um I think that just kind of carries over into the professional sphere and I think that's also part of why the people that do what we do tend to enjoy themselves so much because not only is the science really cool and the engineering really cool but the people that you get to do it with
00:40:56
Speaker
are also really cool. So that's that's that's kind of cool. um So Jacob, you obviously have gone a little bit of the startup entrepreneurship route and you said that kind of runs in your family. um What are your plans kind of for taking that next level? or And I also want to add, because sometimes a lot of our listeners, I don't know, like as a student, you don't know if you want to go to it get academics or if you want to go to consulting or entrepreneurship. And you say straight out of the bat, like, I don't want to go to academics at all. So I'm also interested in what's the reasoning behind it, why you knew that. That's where I'm going to start.
00:41:44
Speaker
So yeah, I'll answer both of those questions. So one of the main reasons I really realized I didn't want to be an academic and i I'll be the bad guy here because I know a lot of people listening to this podcast probably have PhDs or like, you know, are pursuing PhDs. The pace of it is just way too slow for me. One and two also, I i think generally it pigeonholes you into something very specific. I say that, but I'm like in the niche of sediment science machine or green, uh, cementology machine learning. So I'm in a very specific niche myself, but as an entrepreneur, I really wanted to have a very diverse skillset and be able to move around really quick. So that's why I was trying all these different things in undergrad. Um, yes. So I think for me, it's not necessarily because like,
00:42:42
Speaker
I respect academics and I respect people that are getting their PhDs. They're, they're absolutely moving fields forwards, but that is just not me. I remember once at a conference, I told a group of people while we were drinking at a bar, I was like, yeah, I'd rather almost get two master's degrees instead of a PhD. And it was like, all hell broke loose. It was like, why would you do that? Whatever. But going forward.
00:43:06
Speaker
This SBIR ends in January. I'm actually starting my master's at the University of Delaware in February, um getting a degree in robotics, which at surface level sounds like it has nothing to do with coastal engineering. um The project I'm going to be working on is funded by the Department of Defense. So um we're actually going to put this technology that I've been talking about on a quadruped dog. So like one of the spot mini type robot dogs to autonomously walk and sample beaches by itself, as long with a whole other suite of sensors like LiDAR, stereoscopic cameras, whatever. um
00:43:46
Speaker
And so the kind of idea for this is one, the military needs it because they don't want to have boots on the grounds in these hot areas. They'd rather get a full survey on a beach where either troops are going to land or where a base is going to go without actually having people on the ground in these hostile conditions, but still be able to collect all the data they need.
00:44:06
Speaker
And then also just from like a civil standpoint, being able to have something that to autonomously samples without the need of humans. ah you know We can get data at a much faster clip um during the night, even during storms or something when you wouldn't want to have people out there. um So that's what I'm doing for my master's degree. And the reason I chose robotics is because I really wanted to find something tangent to coastal engineering.
00:44:36
Speaker
that isn't coastal engineering, if that makes sense. I love coastal engineering, it'll be the field I'm in forever, but as an entrepreneur, I'm always like looking for problems and solutions to those problems. So I think a big solution going forward just for our field and many fields in general is gonna be robotics and these autonomous systems like coastal engineering, manufacturing,
00:45:03
Speaker
port workers, whatever whatever you're thinking, I think robotics are gonna be huge going forwards. So that's kind of my my plan for the next two years. And then ah we're gonna apply for a phase two SBIR, which will overlap kind of near the second half of my master's degree. So that's as far as I can see in the future right now, but that's that's my plan.
00:45:32
Speaker
Very cool, very cool. So as as I hear you say that, um you know, a couple things come to mind. The first thing that comes to mind is, is I want one of those, I want one of those slow paced academic jobs, man. Like you should, you should try. Technically, I'm a research professor, so I think.
00:45:52
Speaker
It's interesting to hear you kind of describe your ah your thoughts about the academic career path because as as a research professor, I would say that you know my experience is much different. and I don't know that I'd necessarily realized in the many different ways that it was different, but just the the constant scramble to find new research and the necessity ah because you're funded by research grants to not be sort of pigeonholed and the the need to go out and try to be diversified because funding streams are fickle, right? You get really become an expert in one field and
00:46:29
Speaker
all of a sudden it dries you know the money dries up in that specific direction and then you're kind of screwed. So you know by by nature of a research professor, you do have to kind of be a little bit more, and I never thought of, i did and honestly, until you said it, I hadn't really thought about kind of how that forces you to be a little bit more um diversified, right? And you know my so my research ranges from coastal engineering to living shorelines to bordering on like ecology kind of stuff. So it's kind of and interesting.
00:46:58
Speaker
yeah perspective. And again, and I understand the appeal of it. It's just, it's something that I i couldn't do myself. Like, even a good example right now is like, I've always been a little ADHD. Like right now I'm sitting Sam for 12 hours a day, but the SIB machine is going for 10 minutes at a time. So every 10 minutes, I'm literally switching tasks like machine learning, 10 minutes, sitting 10 minutes, machine learning, and it's back and forth or whatever my my project might be for the day. That's kind of how I like to work. so Again, I understand a lot of people love it and I understand the appeal of it, just not not not my path.
00:47:37
Speaker
yeah i mean it just and like yeah it's It's funny too, like even that aspect of
Academic Roles and Flexibility
00:47:42
Speaker
it, you know one of the things that i that I like about my particular, and I'm not saying it's every academic, my particular academic path is that You know, I woke up this morning. i i I wrote part of a proposal this morning. Here I am hosting a podcast. I've got a student research team meeting. As soon as the podcast ends, I've got to meet with an undergraduate later. I have a senior design group that's working on a living show. So in essence, yeah you know, it's not every 10 minutes, but
00:48:09
Speaker
I feel like, you know particularly today, Tuesdays and Thursdays, it seems like every hour I'm constantly switching. And saying that, I'm not actually teaching classes right now. Somebody once told me that the thing that they liked about being a professor is that ability to kind of wake up and kind of decide what you're going to do on any given day. And ah I do like that. And in particular, for me, it's that ability to interact with students, which is the key.
00:48:29
Speaker
um In my spare time, I'm ah i'm ah um ah um a basketball coach. I coach middle school and high school girls um just because I enjoy that interaction, that like mentorship, that ah working with kids kind of ah aspect. so um So being a professor can be rewarding. I say it just depends on your your setting, right? And you know definitely there are some jobs where you you get pigeonholed and you focus in on a very narrow problem that That's not me. um I'm more on that, you know, bigger picture kind of side of things, which is for me is rewarding. But related to the quadruped, I think one of the, things we we literally just got a grant to ah purchase a bunch of equipment. So I'm thinking now I just need to wait about two years until you've perfected the whole quadruped dog, because I think I can replace about three or four things that I was going to buy with ah one of your your devices. So I think I might have to so wait around for that to happen.
00:49:26
Speaker
And um from what I hear from both of you, I think there are probably then more similarities between like and an entrepreneur job and a more research-based job. um But at the same time, we need both. I understand that the idea of going through a PhD can be draining and not that very appealing. So it's just a matter of what what do you want to put your time into? And I think these are like great examples So that our listeners who are like wondering what did I want to do can ask themselves the right questions. And it's great to see that whatever path you take, you kind of ended up doing what you like at the end. Just ask you ask yourself the right question and it'll fall into place and you can always switch too. But yeah, super interesting. Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. oh Understanding who you are and what makes you happy.
00:50:24
Speaker
right That's going to ultimately determine what's the appropriate path for you. So PhD, definitely not for everybody. Entrepreneurship is definitely not for everybody. You have to have the right type of personality. You have to be able to be willing to take risks and tolerate you know failures, and that's not for everybody. so um But again, that's one of the really cool things about the subject matter, the topic, the field, is there's room for all of this. There's room for the more strict pure academic path. There's room for the entrepreneurship opportunities. We're at a very critical ah said before point in time where the field of coastal science is evolving very rapidly ah because of the you know ability to collect information and analyze that information and turn it around and make informed decisions. so um you know Certainly when it comes to understanding impacts from
00:51:16
Speaker
uh, hurricanes and nor'easters and tropical storms. Um, obviously those things aren't going away, right? So we're, we're sitting here in my lab is just working, doing some analysis for hurricanes, Helene and Milton, you know, that, you know, that's type of, those types of events, unfortunately.
00:51:33
Speaker
are going to continue to happen. So there's going to be a continuous need to collect that data, collect that information, improve our understanding of the coastal environment. So um again, opportunities in a lot of different directions for a lot of different types of people and all of it's necessary to kind of move the field forward. So um really cool stuff that the two of you are working on.
Advice for Aspiring Coastal Engineers
00:51:56
Speaker
So when we tend to wind down the interviews, I think one of the things that we we typically ask of our guests is to um give any sort of, you're you're both very young, so I'll say give your sage wisdom, like within all your years, all of that great experience that you have, like if you were to provide some advice to you, whether it's undergraduate students or even just new professionals getting in because you guys have experiences that,
00:52:23
Speaker
even people that are a little bit older might be thinking about going back to graduate school or might be thinking about jumping into entrepreneurship in, you know, a coastal field. um What types of advice would you give to students and and new professionals? So, um Jacob, why don't we start with you?
00:52:44
Speaker
Yeah. um So I can really, I guess I can only speak to kind of the undergrad since that's all I've gone through so far. Taking a step back from coastal engineering, one advice one piece of advice I have for everybody is take care of your body.
00:53:00
Speaker
like how you work out, how you eat, it directly affects your work. Don't let anybody tell you it doesn't, it affects your mood, your sleep. So just wanna get that out of the way. That's what I always tell people who ask me about undergrad, because it can be stressful and that was like my outlet, like, okay, I'm stressed out, none of the, my codes broke for the past three hours, I'm gonna go for a run or I'm gonna go to the gym or something, but but take those breaks, it's good for you. um So that yeah, that's,
00:53:29
Speaker
Number one, the most important, but number two is I really think during your undergrad is should be your time for exploration. Go work for different professors. Take classes that you maybe want to take, but might not be part of your major. for So for me, that was taking machine learning and and data science classes, even though I was in coastal engineering. like Kind of look around at some fields, maybe tangent to coastal engineering or your field and kind of get a feel for them. um Talk to some people in those fields. And if you're even thinking about like wanting to start your own company or maybe sell a product one day or something, I would say you should just go for it. like Take that step. It's extremely rewarding. um You learn a bunch in the whole process.
00:54:13
Speaker
um So yeah, I would say those are probably my my two biggest pieces of advice for for specifically undergrads is don't focus too much on something your undergraduate degree kind of look around at fields around yours and and kind of get that understanding and also just take care of yourself. Undergrad can be like super stressful. um Take care of your body.
00:54:38
Speaker
I like that piece of advice. Um, I don't think we've had that before. So it's really interesting to have that point of view of like, yeah, work is not everything. Your study is not everything. You matter a lot to your body, your mind, everything. Yeah. yeah And it it directly affects your work. Do not let anybody tell you it doesn't. And it's just something that people won't hear really from their professors or even, you know, from their parents sometimes. So, so do that. It it will make your whole life better.
00:55:06
Speaker
I love that very entrepreneur entrepreneurpreur ah side of viewing things. I think it's great, great advice. What about you, EJ?
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah, I totally ah totally agree. i mean i think you know, enjoying your your hobbies or your interests is huge. um And yeah, I would just say some some advices. Like if you like something, say something. I think that goes a long way, you know, or if you're if you're interested in something, just ask about it. And if you're curious, just, you know, don't feel shy to ask ah silly questions, you know, like great questions or things like what is that? How did you do that? You know, that's like really helpful, even though they might
00:55:53
Speaker
seem silly, ah usually starts a great conversation. And, ah you know, if you're just curious about people, and I think ah also just remembering that, you know, everybody's just, ah you know, their own person. And so, like, when you go talk to people, it might be a little intimidating at first, but for the most part, you know, everybody just wants similar things. And you can just chat with with whoever and you know Maybe they don't have the time then, but you can set up a time at another time and just go get a cup of coffee with someone. and um I think you can you can learn a lot by just asking and chatting and you know yeah asking those those silly questions. Yeah, I love that. i Get yourself out there and you're going to receive a positive response from the people. They're going to be happy to answer whatever questions you have. Yeah, I love that. Great advice.
00:56:45
Speaker
One thing also I would tell people, especially if you're thinking you want to be an entrepreneur, is the undergrad kind of time of your life is also a good time to identify problems that need to be solved. Like, hey, this takes way too long. This device costs way too much. like the This is kind of the time where you can figure out like you're new enough to the field where you're not under the mindset like, oh, this is the way it is and this is the way it's going to stay. Like you can kind of get in there and break some things. in it And like EJ just said, ask those like questions that may seem kind of silly or like, um,
00:57:23
Speaker
just ask the questions, like, why are we doing it this way when it seems so slow? Or why are we doing it this way when it's so expensive? Or why don't we do it this way? So those are some so important and things. Some important things to do um as an undergrad, especially if you're trying to go kind of the same route I did, is is really find those problems, think of some solutions and and ask, you know, why are we why is it the way it is? Does it need to be this way? Could it be cheaper? Could it be faster?
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah, embrace your creativity. I love that. Yeah, and I think that that's actually great advice for PhD students as well, right? I think, you know, a lot of that, a lot of what you just said about not being able to sort of challenge the status quo, to identify problems, right? That's, those are also things that, you know, the really good PhD students, they also have that mindset, right? different I guess direction or a different application, different end goal, but um i think I think the advice is the same, right? that's Ask the questions. Don't be afraid to ask the questions. I think that's kind of one of the biggest things when I meet with undergrads, try to thinking about grad school grad school, whether it's research or you know getting them to accept or understand that it it is okay to challenge the authority, it is okay to challenge
00:58:40
Speaker
you know, what we think we know about things, right? That's, that's how we move forward. So, uh, whether it's entrepreneurial, whether it's grad school, whatever, I mean, definitely, I think that's, that's great, great career advice. Yes. Thank you guys for, um, ah sharing all your experiences and giving us all these advice. I really enjoyed doing this podcast episode. It was really, really interesting to have this more, um, techie color to it, I would say. Um, so yeah, thank you very much.
00:59:10
Speaker
Yeah, thanks so much for having us. This was great. Yeah, that was fun. Thank you. So we'd like to thank New Jersey Sea Grant for sponsoring today's podcast as always. And if you really enjoyed listening to the podcast, you can always support Going Coastal. In the future, we do plan to have sponsored episodes for your brand. So now Gene, if you're out there, reach out, you can contact us with our new email address at podcastgoingcoastal at gmail.com. Thanks for listening.