William Harcourt

Bio:

I have a keen interest in developing remote sensing techniques to understand environmental change. After completing a BSc in Geography at the University of Exeter I worked on a research project within the same department in which I analysed satellite imagery to quantify the velocity of glaciers across the Arctic. I soon realised the power of remote sensing and completed an MSc in Geographical Information Science (GIS) at the University of Edinburgh. I then spent one year at Edinburgh Napier University where I led a project quantifying the spatial distribution of seagrass ecosystems across the coast of Kenya. I now find myself combining all these interests in a PhD here at the University of S Andrews, where I am developing the use of millimetre wave radar to study glaciers. Full details on millimetre-wave imaging and previous work from our group can be found here. My research website can be found here.

Research Interests:

I am primarily interested in developing new remote sensing techniques to understand environmental change, especially glaciers. I have previously utilised an array of optical and Radar imagery to quantify glacier change. I am now using this knowledge to develop the use of ground-based radar (AVTIS) to study glaciers, using ice-ocean interactions and volcano-glacier interactions as case studies. Central to this project is understanding the scattering properties of ice at millimetre wavelengths, as well as developing improved surface elevation extraction methods and terrain classification algorithms.