Joel
Salzman

VISER

An XR glaciology app.

Using an Oculus or Hololens VR/AR headset, users can manipulate radargrams and other scientific data to study glaciological processes in Antarctica and Greenland. My primary contribution thus far has been creating the pipeline that ingests radar plots and generates 3D meshes that visualize the actual locations from where the signals were gathered.

GIS Developer

For over two years, my job was to figure out where to build utility-scale renewable (primarily wind and solar) projects for Apex Clean Energy. Most of my work consisted of data engineering and automated geospatial analysis. My deliverables remain proprietary but I will happily explain what I did and what I learned if asked.

Voting Power

Where do votes matter most? A project for a GIS class in college that ended up as an interactive web map. See the project page for (many) details.

Working on this project is a big part of why I decided to go back to school for Computer Science.

Aquaculture

Primary Ocean Producers is a startup aiming to cultivate Macrocystis pyrifera in the deep ocean, in partnership with Catalina Sea Ranch. We were funded by a grant from ARPA-E to grow giant kelp en masse in order to produce carbon-neutral biofuel.

My role was to site the pilot facilities off the coast of California. Along with two aquatic biologists, I developed a hierarchical suitability model for giant kelp cultivation. Among other factors, we looked at chemical availability (for nutrients), geophysical phenomena (so the kelp would be safe), and legal restrictions (so we could build the facility).