Training & Teaching¶

Training

I develop and deliver national training programs to build USGS capacity in non-contact measurement technologies. Teaching and mentoring staff and scientists at all levels is a core part of my mission to operationalize these methods agency-wide.

National Training Courses¶

Image Velocimetry Techniques for Computing River Velocity and Discharge¶

A comprehensive 40-hour national training course covering the theory, practice, and software tools for image velocimetry. Delivered seven times between 2022–2026 to 170+ USGS staff with 95% satisfaction rates.

Topics covered:

Fundamentals of image velocimetry (STIV, PIV, LSPIV)
Camera installation and video collection best practices
IVyTools software operation and workflows
Orthorectification and ground control
Quality assurance and uncertainty estimation
Computing and documenting discharge measurements

Additional Courses Developed¶

Concepts of Measuring Velocity and Streamflow with Doppler Radar
Using Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers for Velocity and Bathymetry Mapping
Applying Image Velocimetry using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS)

University Teaching¶

My methods and software have been incorporated into graduate-level curriculum at multiple universities:

University of Arizona — Image velocimetry short course (Sept 2024)
Pennsylvania State University — Image velocimetry lecture and short course (Sept 2024)
University of Texas at San Antonio — Seminar series (Oct 2021)
Texas A&M University — Geosciences Spring Colloquium (Feb 2020)

Student Advising¶

I advise graduate students whose thesis research directly uses methods I developed:

A. Tenorio (Penn State) — Auto-STIV deep learning framework
A. Cadogan (University of Arizona) — UAS-based discharge measurement

Outreach¶

DesignSafe Summer Institute (2022) — K–12 STEM teacher mentoring program
St. Matthews School STEM Program (2018) — Elementary drone outreach
Greater Austin Contractors & Engineers Association (2019) — Flood response technology
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (2018) — Keynote on measurement techniques