PhD projects
COAT Tools is one of the Thematic Commitments of UiT The Arctic University of Norway within the theme “Energy, Climate, Society and Environment”. Its main objective is the “Methodological advancement of Climate-ecological Observatory for Arctic Tundra”, and consists of 4 PhD projects:
1) Remote sensing of vegetation parameters in the forest-tundra ecotone
The first project is a collaboration between the Department of Physics and Technology and NINA, and aims at developing methods based on new satellite sensors that can be used to infer vegetation state and its changes, particularly at the ecotone between forest and tundra.
2) Platform for distributed observatories in Arctic environments
The second project, is a collaboration between the Departments of Computer Science and Arctic and Marine Biology. Its aims are to make data collection through networks of sensors (such as camera traps or audio recordings) more efficient, and to develop high performance but robust processors at the sensor units to allow direct communication.
3) Efficient Bayesian analysis of dynamics and changes in ecosystem models
The third project, is a collaboration between the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics and Arctic and Marine Biology. Data collected by the different COAT modules aim at assessing the relative effects of climate, management and endogenous dynamics on ecosystem changes. This project will develop Bayesian statistical methods to implement dynamic models of these effects and their interactions.
4) Research-based activities in natural science education.
The fourth project, is a collaboration between the Departments of Education and Arctic and Marine Biology. While research-based activities in schools are increasingly popular, both as “outreach” and as “citizen science”, we need to investigate systematically how the impacts of both aspects can be jointly maximized. This project will assess how new technologies can help at the interface between natural science research and education.