Join us for a one-day seminar series in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at UCL, to learn more about the engineering of terrestrial and planetary radars and some exciting results of research from radar sounding - in Antarctica, Greenland and for the icy moons of Jupiter.

We welcome our guest main speaker Dr Dustin Schroeder from Stanford University to deliver a set of invited talks on this fascinating subject area. This is complemented with keynote presentations by scholars working in this field of research from the universities of Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle and Edinburgh. An interactive panel discussion, posters and networking session concludes the event.

All students and staff are warmly invited, both from within UCL and externally. Space is limited so registration is mandatory.

Agenda

10:00 - Refreshments (provided)

10:30 - Terrestrial ice radar sounding

11:30 - Keynote talks I

12:30 - Lunch break (on your own)

13:30 - Keynote talks II

14:30 - Planetary ice radar sounding

15:30 - Panel discussion, posters and networking

Event Flyer

Main speaker: Dustin M. Schroeder, Ph.D.

Radio Glaciology: A Window into the Physical Processes of Ice Sheets and Icy Moons

About this seminar series

Radio echo sounding is a uniquely powerful geophysical technique for studying the interior of ice sheets, glaciers, and icy planetary bodies. It can provide broad coverage and deep penetration as well as interpretable ice thickness, basal topography, and englacial radio stratigraphy.

However, despite the long tradition of glaciological interpretation of radar images, quantitative analyses of radar sounding data are rare and face several technical challenges. These include attenuation uncertainty from unknown ice temperature and chemistry, clutter and losses from surface and volume scattering, and a lack of problem-specific radar theory. However, there is rich, often underexploited, information in modern radar sounding data, which is being collected over terrestrial and planetary ice at an unprecedented rate. The development and application of hypothesis-driven analysis approaches for these data can place observational constraints on the morphologic, hydrologic, geologic, mechanical, thermal, and oceanographic configurations of ice sheets and glaciers. These boundary conditions – and the physical processes which they express and control – are filling a fundamental gap in our ability to understand and predict the evolution, stability, and sea level contributions of marine ice sheets.

About the speaker

Dustin Schroeder is an Assistant Professor of Geophysics in the School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences at Stanford University. He works on the fundamental problem of observing, understanding, and predicting the configuration and evolution of ice sheet boundary conditions using ice penetrating radar sounding data. Before joining Stanford he worked as a radar systems engineer with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. He is also a science team member and co-investigator on the REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-Surface) radar sounder on NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and is an active collaborator on the RIME (Radar for Icy Moon Exploration) radar sounder for ESA’s JUICE mission to Ganymede. He received his PhD in geophysics from the University of Texas at Austin where he served as the lead radar engineer and operator during three Antarctic field seasons with the ICECAP and Operation Ice-Bridge projects.

This event is funded by UCL, supported by the UCL IEEE Student Society and sponsored/co-hosted by the IEEE UK and Ireland Education Society Chapter. We thank Paul McKenna and Sharon Edwards for their help and support with local arrangements.

FAQs

How can I contact the organiser with any questions?

By email to Lai Bun Lok at l.lok@ucl.ac.uk or by telephone on 0203 108 1113

What are my public transport options for getting to and from the event?

UCL is located in the Bloomsbury area of Central London. Nearby tube stations are Goodge Street (Northern Line), Euston Square (Metropolitan and Circle Lines), Warren Street (Northern and Victoria Lines) and Russell Square (Piccadilly Line). The nearest national rail station is Euston.

All stations are within 10 minutes walk to the seminar venue in the Roberts Engineering Building, which is directly opposite the Waterstone's bookshop along Torrington Place.

A good old fashioned printable map is available here.

Is the event focused on postgraduates or undergraduates?

Both. An interactive panel discussion is also being finalised to give a wider perspective on the subject area.