In summer 2026, Cora Jones participated in a 10 week research internship with BGC Engineering. BGC Engineering is an international consulting firm that provides professional services in applied earth sciences. Cora gained experience in the GIS, Remote Sensing, and Hazards departments both in the office working with real world data and in the field. We are so proud of this accomplishment and look forward to learning more from Cora and the experiences she gained from industry.
This summer, Afrida Aranya also received the GSA Graduate Research Grant to support her research focused on sedimentation of Lake Austin Reservoir. This grant supported her participation in a workshop to learn about data post processing using the ISE3 program through Innomar. This success in acquiring funding and resultant skills and experience gained has set Afrida on another exciting path towards another big step in her research!
In Fall 2026, Aleen Pertuz-Paz applied and was accepted into Virginia Tech’s Remote Sensing Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program (RSIGEP)! This opportunity supports Aleen’s interest in how remote sensing can help her better understand river systems. Joining the RSIGEP community will allow her to continue to develop those interests particularly in connecting water surface elevation observations from the SWOT mission with river geomorphology, including bed processes, grain size, and bed morphology.
In October, 2026, Afrida Aranya passed her preliminary exam and officially became a PhD candidate! This is a big moment for the BDRG with our first student to move to PhD candidacy. Afrida is blazing the trail for current and future lab members and we are so proud to have her as a role model.
Congrats to the BDRG!
