I am a PhD student on the SENSE Earth Observation CDT programme, based within the School of GeoScience at the University of Edinburgh.
My research is focussed on Arctic greening across spatial scales. Specifically, I am aiming to investigate the effect of sub-pixel scale physical phenomena, such as summer snow patches and permafrost thaw slumps, on Arctic greening analyses derived from MODIS and Landsat imagery.
In order to study snow and permafrost within satellite pixels, I use drones carrying optical (multispectral) sensors as a tool to create high-resolution images and maps of Arctic tundra landscapes. In summer 2022 I collected data in Canadian Yukon (below) and I hope to return to higher latitude Arctic sites in summer 2023 to collect similar data.
I also hold a strong interest in science communication and outreach. I tutor on the Undergraduate ‘GeoSciences Outreach’ course and I am a founder of the SatSchool project, a schools outreach programe which hase received ~£8k of funding to date.
I am a member of TeamShrub, a research group of ecologists working to understand how global change alters plant communities and ecosystem processes.
I am supervised by Isla Myers-Smith (University of Edinburgh) and co-supervised by Jeff Kerby (Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies).
Email: calum.hoad@ed.ac.uk
SENSE CDT: https://eo-cdt.org
TeamShrub: https://teamshrub.com