Over spring break, Jacob, Camelia (undergraduate in Computer Science), and Mike (PhenoCam Team / Advanced Research Computing) traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska for Pixels to Enviro Patterns (PEP) 2026. Hosted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, PEP 2026 was an NSF-funded science and storytelling workshop based around the powerful and continuously-evolving software called GRIME AI. Jacob, Camelia, Mike, and others have been working together on a project that leverages GRIME AI to use dynamic, instead of static, vegetation masks to derive phenological information from PhenoCam imagery of Jacob’s field sites in New Mexico. Development of GRIME AI is funded by an NSF Geoinformatics grant awarded to Dr. Troy Gilmore at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Andrew is a co-PI on the grant.
The workshop consisted of presentations about using time-lapse imagery and artificial intelligence technology for hydrological and ecological teaching and research. After returning to Flagstaff, Jacob noted that “seeing old friends and making new ones, and learning about cutting-edge science, really made the trip a treat!”
