 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's Wednesday, 10 o'clock, rock. I'm Jay Fidel, think tech, and we're doing today research in Manoa with Andrea Gabrielli, graduate student at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at UH Manoa. But today he's not there. Today he's in San Francisco. He's at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which is a big deal. So we want to talk to him. We want to get a handle on what's going on in that meeting in San Francisco and learn, as he learns, what's going on in the field of geophysics. Welcome to the show. It's nice to see your smile and face, Andrea. Thank you very much, Jay. Good morning, everyone. Nice to be here. Nice to talk to you from San Francisco. So, Andrea, tell us what the Geophysical Union is. When was it organized? Who is involved in it and what does it do with these meetings? With pleasure. So basically, the American Geophysical Union meeting is that the American Geophysical Union is the largest organization in the earth science in the entire world. It was founded in 1919. And it grew exponentially from having just 20 members, 20 attendees were present in their first meeting, which was in 1920, here in San Francisco. And right now, last year, for example, we had more than 24,000 people attending from more than 110 different countries. That's major. When you compare that, say, with the IUCN that happened here in Honolulu last summer, we had 10,000. This is more than twice as many as one of the biggest conferences we here in Honolulu ever had at the convention center. Right. This is, this union is basically, it spans from so many different fields in the geoscience. We're talking from earthquakes and volcanic activity, but even drought, hydrology, atmospheric sciences and planetary science. And not only universities are here present with their research and their faculty people, but also some federal agencies such as NASA and Google, but also the FLIR and other companies that are interested in sharing their products, their research, their future plans with the science community here in San Francisco. So it's not, it's not only the academic community. Absolutely. Industry. Industry and federal agencies and universities. So it's really, really a large and extended meeting with so many different events and things going on every day. Usually, I was talking to some friends of mine here who are also in San Francisco. And usually, everybody starts around eight o'clock in the morning with some breakfast and talks with colleagues. And then we're off into the most corner center, which gets his name from one of the former mayors of San Francisco. And we're right in downtown. So attending conferences and lectures. And then we have a huge poster hall. So I believe we also have a picture of that. Yeah, let's take a look at some pictures now, Andrea. Okay, this is the picture of the poster hall. And there must be hundreds just within our view, maybe thousands even altogether. Describe what happens here in this poster hall. So basically, these, the AGU meeting is organized in sessions. So every discipline, such as, for example, planetary science has different sessions. So one session specific about lunar geology, or, for example, exploration of the outer solar system, or even Mars and other planets impact craters, for example. And so it's organized in sessions so that people can attend the sessions or they are most interested in. So here, for example, you can see in these pictures, this is the poster hall. We have thousands of posters, thousands of people presenting their research. So what usually happens is that you have a program of all the sessions and all the people who are presenting there. And you can get a number. So you can, it's really well organized. So you can walk directly to the session and then you can talk to the people who are presenting. That's very good. That's very good. And this is the poster hall. So it's organized in such a way that a poster is hanged over there in place around in the morning about eight AM in the morning. And then the people usually leave a sign next to the poster saying, I will be here between this time and this time so people can go and talk. Sure. Everybody wins. Everybody wins. Absolutely. And so and so this is a poster session. But then there are also other kind of sessions which are presentations. So usually, usually there are presentations. So there are talks which are 15 minutes long. Yeah, we're looking now at a photo of a talk with a huge big TV screen. Somebody is presenting on something. So can you describe this photo for us? This is the NASA booth. So you can see this is NASA. These are NASA scientists presenting about the most recent missions. So you can see it is really well attended. Because AGU with all these talks and all these different agencies present is a fantastic place to get to know more people and even start new collaborations, showing new ideas and having more projects. Well, let me ask you about that. And, Andrea, you know, when you go, you said you had some friends in San Francisco, but do you have friends at the conference? Do you have colleagues that you already know that you plan to look up that you have met by by agreement at the conference? Absolutely. In fact, for example, the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, which is the Institute I work at, is basically present with 20 plus events, I mean, with which include basically talks at sessions and also posters. So I was one of the first who presented here because I was on Monday morning. So I believe we have a picture of me, I think standing next to you. So just to show how it looks like, I mean, these posters. So the posters are actually quite big. They are one of the very big posters compared to other conferences. But so I was one of the first who presented here in San Francisco. But some of my colleagues that were also present that will be talking on Thursday. So, for example, my supervisor, Professor Robert Wright, is going to talk on Thursday morning about a new thermal hyperspectral imaging camera, which we developed. And we're still working on this. So I presented some results for some inversion algorithm, so some software to basically retrieve SO2 gas, another pollute chemical substances in the atmosphere and retrieve quantities. So how much gas is in the atmosphere? That was that your poster? That's my poster. So we presented some of these results. And but for example, other topics that will be covered are impact craters. For example, Pete Moghini's Mark presented on Monday morning, he gave a talk and he explained some impact craters on Mars, some very some in geological terms that these are craters that are fairly recent on Mars. So he was looking at the deposits and all that. And then we and then we have some also some old friends who joined us from Europe. So there are people who were who were at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics. But then they moved on to other places such as Los Alamos National Laboratory here in the US or the European Space Agency. And so it's also a great a great way to talk to people who they're not here anymore. So it's also join old friends and share experiences and results and all that. You talked about finding ways to collaborate. And I'm always interested in that. So you're sitting there in the in the great hall, maybe the great hall of posters and schmoozing with somebody. And then you have an idea. And he says, yeah, that's a great idea. And then you say, why don't we work on it together? Is that what happens? Absolutely. Because usually, for example, I'm going to give you an example. While I was standing presenting my poster, there was this guy from the the State University in New York. And and he came and he was very interested because he had seen before some work by Paul Lucy, who is a professor here at the University of Hawaii. And so he is very interested in these hyperspectral imaging sensors. So what is doing now, the University of New York is trying to build some new sensors. And they are interested in the work we're doing because they would like, they would like to use our, for example, the the software to retrieve gases that I that I and John Porter, who is also a researcher at the HIGP developed. But the interesting thing is that one of the applications of this technology is that we you can use, we can you can use it to detect gases such as we're doing, but you can also use it to detect camouflage targets or identify rocks or other materials from the distances. And that is what they're interested in. So they are interested in a slightly different subject, but the technique that they're trying to develop is very similar. And so this is why we started to talk what the way we're doing it the way they are doing it. And so it's just excellent to share ideas. But you don't hold back. You tell them everything you're doing, they tell you everything they're doing. This is a completely candid conversation. Nobody is being particularly cautious about it. You share. Isn't that what happens? Well, you have to be a little cautious, because especially if the results are not published, of course, because if there is a paper which is published, then you can refer them to the to the paper. But I mean, usually talking about ideas and talking and sharing these things is extremely is extremely good. And and for example, what we did on Monday night, we had we had a dinner with all of the people who are currently aware in the past at the University of Hawaii at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. And so this was an excellent way to meet again, colleagues and former people and former collaborators. But then also AGU organizes also events for the broader community. So yesterday, we had a gathering with all the volcanology, all the all the or the volcanology presence at the Marriott here in downtown in San Francisco. And now and that was also an excellent way, especially in front of, you know, food and some drinks. Well, you need to go to a conference like this, you need to take a break and here at Think Tech, we need to take a break too. So we take a break. We'll be right back with Andrea Gabrieli. We'll be right back. 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We've taken our break. We're back with Andrea Gabrieli, who joins us by Skype from the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, California. And, you know, talking about breaks, Andrea went to a meeting of Google. And we have a photo of that. And, Andrea, perhaps you could explain what was going on in your meeting with Google. Absolutely, James. So this, here we have, we are inside the Google San Francisco headquarters. And so Google was present at the American Geophysical Union meeting with the booth and also some events, some workshops to train the scientists about some products that Google has developed for Earth science data and data processing, particularly from satellites. So here you can see one of these events. We are in one of Google's conference room here in San Francisco. The location is like 20 minutes walk from the most corner center. That's where there is the American Geophysical Union meeting. So it's quite convenient. You can easily get there and you go there. So basically Google was interested in the American Geophysical Union, particularly because of their Earth Engine platform. So the Earth Engine platform is a platform that Google developed for processing of images, and particularly satellite data. So this is an extension of Google Earth, yeah? And it's sort of an extension of Google Earth, but it's much more powerful because you can pay, it's a platform. So basically you can code, you can write your own programs, you can write your own processing tools and algorithms. And for example, you can process Landsat data in a very effective way. So Landsat is a satellite by NASA, which takes images of the Earth. And so you can use these images to monitor a variety of things such as natural hazards or processing which are happening on the Earth. What strikes me is that Google is, I didn't know that Google was into science. I didn't know that Google taught scientists. I didn't know that Google followed the Geophysical Union meeting and that it wanted to be part of the whole scientific advance in this area. Does that surprise you? Well, this is what really Google is about because Google is, they have products for the people, for the public, but it's really a research organization, it's a private company, it's a research organization. And one of the Google people who was there to meet the scientists at the American Geophysical Union was telling me that the AGU is their favorite part of the year because they can basically, they develop these tools for the science, for the scientific community. But in this time of the year is great for them because they can actually talk to the scientists to get feedback about their product. So how, is our product useful to you? What kind of changes you would like to see in the program and things like that? So it's absolutely, it's absolutely amazing, these kinds of, as I said, the kind of collaborations that start in this kind of meetings, and particularly this American Geophysical Union meeting. Well, let's go to the next photograph. I'm really getting excited about the depth and breadth of this meeting. It goes everywhere. What's this now? This looks like another hall. Oh, no, the next, this picture is basically the Moscone Center here in San Francisco. This is the location of the conference. So I took this picture just to show how it looks like. And you can see, and actually the interesting thing is that I took these pictures around 8 p.m. I was leaving, I was going for dinner with some colleagues and friends. But what's interesting in that is that you can see there, even 8 p.m., there are still people going in and out of the location of the conference because, I mean, as I said, these are really, really full, full days. As I said, they start 8 a.m. in the morning and they just continue with meeting dinners and even at night. That's great. We can learn from them in conferences here to take advantage of the fact that people are together and that there's possibilities of collaboration and to squeeze that lemon for everything you can get out of it. And it's amazing because, as I said, there are more than 110 countries that are represented here. So it's particularly, I mean, as I said, the extent of this conference is just great. Yeah. Okay, we've got one more photo. Let's look at that. The last picture is, since we were mentioning the importance of the fact that not only universities are present, but also external exhibitors, such as, as I said, Google and NASA, but even companies that actually build sensors. So sensors that scientists might use. So here we're looking at the exhibit hall. So that's basically the place where all the external exhibitors were present. And also, since this conference is also well attended by students, even undergraduate students, who come and because they're interested in science and would like to learn more about graduate programs at universities. So what's the, there's a reference in this photo to the 2019 AGU fall meeting. What is that? Does it happen every, what, three years or two years or what? No, no, no, no, this, that's just a sign that it's changing over time. Basically was telling that the locations of the next AGU for, for, for, for next year. It happens and that's a good question. So yeah, it happens every year, every year, and usually the first meet, usually it's held here in San Francisco, but there's going to be some renovations on of the most corner center. So basically next year 2017 is going to be in Louisiana, in New Orleans. Are you going? Probably I will be going, yes. And, and, and two thousand, and then 2018 will be Washington DC, so it will be in the capital, and then 2019 it will be back in San Francisco. So that sign is basically saying that in 2019 it will be back in San Francisco. One other thing about the industry there and the exhibit hall that you, that you were talking about, is this an opportunity for suppliers, maybe sensor manufacturers, what have you, to make deals with universities, with researchers? Is it an opportunity for you to make deals with them, either to help them develop their equipment or to buy their equipment for your work? Absolutely, that's exactly what the exhibit, the external exhibit hall is all about. So the, the, the, the agencies such as NASA and Google are interested in sharing their plans so that scientists can engage with them in projects. But companies such as, for example, Fleur, who develops infrared sensors, is there to try and make deals with universities and scientists to try and sell their products to people who might be interested in, for some research. And also, and also universities are there to try and make deals with, with, with these companies because they can tell them, the researchers can tell them face to face in person with, with really direct conversation, what they need, what they're interested in, and, and, and so, and so that's excellent for, for, for, for everybody. Now one other thing, and I wanted to ask you before we, we conclude, and that is what, what caught your attention in this, what has caught your attention in this conference, Andrea? What have you learned? Who have you met that leaves a lasting impression for you? Well, my research at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology is mostly about developing sensors for remote sensing and monitoring gases and are, and aerosols in the atmosphere. So I was particularly intrigued and amazed by the fact that a very important professor such as Terry Gerlach came to my poster, for example, and he had very good comments for the work that my, that this group which is led by Robert Wright is, is, is carrying out. So he was particularly interested in these inversion algorithms that, that we are developing because one of the main things is that these inversion algorithms are based on differences between the temperature brightness or between radians that we can measure, but the approach we are, we are introducing is basically having a single point measurements which, which can really tell the concentration of the gases. So people were very interested about this work and, and, and also something that I learned, the, the, the most, the, well I attended this, this Google workshop. So this tool that they developed for processing satellite data is, is particularly, is, is great. And that's, and that's exactly what, what we will eventually be doing because the, the sensors we're developing, now we are just testing them here on the ground on detecting gases, but eventually the goal will be to develop a space platform with these, with these satellites. So once we will do that in the future then the key would be looking down from space and then we might be, end up using these tools that Google is developing. So that's great, great. That was absolutely, absolutely great. So that's the kind of thing you go to a conference like this and your eyes are wide. You spend the whole day, the whole night trying to connect and suck up information and get ideas. That really makes it worthwhile. It sounds like it's been very productive for you and I, I must say I'm, I'm very impressed with the fact that 20 people have, have, have joined you at the conference this year. And I, I think Hawaii and HIGP and SOEST, they are leaders in this area and they play a role at conferences like this. Thank you so much. Andrea Gabrielli, graduate student at Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology in the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University reporting live from the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco. Thank you so much, Andrea. My pleasure Jay, my pleasure. See you when you're back.