Santiago Lopez receives COIL Fellowship for work on Remote Sensing course development

IAS faculty member Santiago Lopez has received a 2022-23 Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellowship. The COIL Fellowship supports faculty in developing and implementing COIL modules in their courses with structured training, a community of practice and a stipend.

Lopez will develop an on-line collaboration program with a colleague from Quito, Ecuador: Professor Cesar Alvarez, who currently teaches in the Department of Environmental Engineering at the Salesian Polytechnic University. The COIL Fellowship will enable Lopez and Alvarez to further develop their work on the pedagogy of remote sensing and approaches to geospatial research. This project will become part of Lopez’s Remote Sensing of the Environment course.

Remote sensing is currently a "hot" topic in the environmental sciences and geosciences. Remote sensing skills are necessary to pursue careers that involve geo-spatial monitoring (e.g. deforestation, climate change, land use change). Most of these careers are multi and interdisciplinary in nature. Students need to gain skills in remote sensing technology not necessarily to develop or create new technologies, but more importantly, to apply them to solve complex local-to-global socio-environmental problems.