Visualization Tool Helps Oceanographers Predict Sediment Sample Hotspots

A new data visualization tool designed by a Georgia Tech Ph.D. student is helping a team of microbial ecologists, geobiologists, and oceanographers gain more insight into how deep-sea microorganisms interact within their environment.

What began as an internship at NASA turned into a unique opportunity for fourth-year Ph.D. student Adam Coscia. Coscia worked under the supervision of an interdisciplinary team of collaborative researchers from Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Caltech manages for NASA, and the ArtCenter College of Design.

Coscia’s mentors recommended him to a Caltech research team led by Victoria Orphan, a renowned microbial ecologist who studies microbial communities in the ocean and how they function within habitats in deep seafloor sediments.

Orphan and her team, the Orphan Lab at Caltech, have conducted their research since 2004. They recently decided to take a data visualization approach to record their findings and plan future expeditions.

To help the Orphan Lab work effectively with topographic and photographic data, Coscia designed DeepSee, an interactive web browser that can annotate and chart data using 3D visualization models and environmental maps.