Joanmarie
Del Vecchio
Telling interdisciplinary landscape stories with large datasets.
Last updated 08/28/2024
My name is Joanmarie Del Vecchio (pronouns: she/her), and I am an Assistant Professor at the College of William & Mary. I am a geoscientist who investigates how climate change has shaped landscapes, both past and present.
I use multispectral and topographic data to quantify landscape form and change. To perform this task at the scale required to derive mechanistic explanations for spatial trends in landscape form, I use high-resolution datasets at large spatial scales. I write algorithms to analyze these vast datasets, and perform these calculations on either cloud or cluster computers. If you're curious, you can watch my keynote address at Colgate Technology Immersion Week 2022, explaining these big data techniques.
To work with large geospatial datasets, I use Python libraries to acquire and clean imagery and rasters, as well as time series data and other environmental datasets. Exploratory data analysis in Python (or other languages) is an essential skill for the modern geoscientist. I teach my students to use code to collect and analyze data.