Zenith Fellow Mentee, Class of 2023
Simon Fraser University, Bachelor of Computing Science
Mentor: Kelsey Doerksen

Sarah is graduating from Simon Fraser University in May 2023 with an Honours degree in Computing Science, a minor in Statistics, and a certificate in Geographic Information Science.

Sarah found her way to Earth Observation through a desire to integrate her computing background with her childhood love for climbing trees and playing along riverbanks. She is driven by the opportunity to contribute to a just and resilient climate future and hopes to do so through the analysis of satellite imagery and other space-sourced data. The interdisciplinary work and research currently being done in Earth Observation serve as an inspiration for Sarah and she is excited to blast off into a career where she can face challenging questions and be steadfast in exploring robust, thoughtful solutions.

Over the course of her degree, Sarah has had the opportunity to work as a STEM educator at Science AL!VE, teaching coding skills to kids throughout BC. She has worked as a Geospatial Developer at both the Pacific Forestry Centre where she analyzed and harmonized national forestry data, and at Hatfield Consultants where she developed cloud-native geospatial tools for image compositing. Sarah’s love of collaborative research and open science has been fostered by her involvement in Dr. Chartrand’s Rivers, Landscapes, and Environmental Change lab at SFU, where she had the opportunity to develop and publish a scientific model for sediment flow in rivers.

Outside of academics and work, Sarah enjoys ambitiously checking out too many books from the library, going on bike tours, playing scary video games with friends, dancing while cooking, advocating for safe active transport programs in Vancouver, and getting really excited about miniature models.

Sarah is looking forward to being a Zenith Fellow and to starting her position as a Research Scientist in Dr. Coop’s Integrated Remote Sensing Studio lab at UBC!