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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
v1.5.0.0

Welcome to IVyTools v1.5 🎉

This is a major update bringing interactive lens correction, smarter search line handling, improved velocity visualization, and friendlier error reporting. Here's the highlights:

Plus: improved orthorectification for portrait/oblique cameras, add/remove GCP rows directly in the table, documentation migrated to MkDocs, and numerous bug fixes for units, uncertainty, and project loading.

Tip: Existing v1.x projects will load normally. Reprocessing is recommended to benefit from the search line clipping and ortho improvements. Older projects using 3D rectification will need to be review, as the new 3D method will be slightly different (XS will move).

Full details in the v1.5.0.0 Release Notes.