![]() You evacuated Louisiana because Hurricane Ida was forecast for a direct hit. Map of coastal Louisiana, which is where the wetlands Talib studies are located. There’s a lot of people living there, lots of economic and ecological impact. I feel it’s really important to better understand this region. It was clear many people around us were working as fisherfolk, and there were lots of fisheries like crabbing. People make their living out there, either because they farm or they fish. Why all the focus on these wetlands in particular? It was common to see lots of birds and bugs, and we also saw alligators, and that’s all really cool. One of my nicest memories from the water was when we had boated to a far-away point, and as we took measurements there, we could see dolphins swimming around us. It’s going to be a one-of-a-kind dataset that hasn’t been seen before. We’re going to get a really detailed picture, in time and space, of how sediment is moving around the wetlands. We already know the reasons in general, but we were there with state-of-the-art technology (radar flown on airplanes), and we gathered data that will help us create models and scenarios that have never been done before. The data we collected will be used to better understand why the wetlands are losing land, or in some cases gaining land. And we were in a COVID bubble, so our team was always together and the bubble was never broken. We stayed in cabins as close as possible to where we launched the boat from. We’d be on the water all the time collecting data. You traveled to Louisiana as part of your JPL work. It’s really nice to work with that combination. With Marc, he is the lead for very interesting projects like Delta-X, with amazing science coming out of it. They are both really, really good scientists.įor instance, with Cathleen, the thing that impresses me the most is the level of knowledge she has in her field of radar applications. I’m very happy because my current advisor, Cathleen Jones, is really great. How have your bosses helped your career progression at JPL? at the University of Miami, where I learned most of what I know about radar processing. I started doing some research, and I decided I really wanted to spend some time studying it. I thought, wow, this radar thing is completely different, very useful. At that time, I didn’t know how to use radar at all, but I’d heard about people using radar to help during disasters. When I finished, I definitely felt there was a still a gap where I could learn more and grow more. My undergraduate degree was at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and I did geomatics engineering (collecting GPS data to keep track of both city infrastructure and natural resources). Talib at his first job in Mexico, as they map GPS sites before heading out to do fieldwork (note the finger broken from playing basketball). How did you learn the skills you need at JPL? I had the chance to play for very good teams, at a very high level, and every now and then we were in a couple of tournaments. I was more into other types of sports that were less popular. In Mexico, it’s mainly soccer and soccer and more soccer. It’s funny because that’s not the most common thing in Mexico. That was how I learned how a house comes to be, what are behind the walls, and how water and electricity come to a house.Īlso, I played basketball. ![]() I have memories of going to work with him at age seven. Very often, my dad took me to work with him, as he thought it was important for me to learn through his experiences. He had a small company that specialized in electrical installations. I grew up in Mexico City and my dad was a contractor in construction. What were your main childhood activities? Read about how Talib recounts his experiences in the wetlands below. The airplanes have radar sensors that capture, in the space of minutes, detailed information on how water and sediment move around the marshes and flow from the continent to the Gulf of Mexico. This is a unique mission at NASA: rather than launching satellites, it’s an up-close study of wetlands using boats and planes. His first assignments at JPL have focused on the fragile wetlands on Louisiana’s coast, as part of JPL’s Delta-X mission. In just two years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Talib Oliver Cabrera’s career has included a pandemic, dolphins, and a near-miss with a hurricane. ![]()
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