Meet Frank Witmer, New UAA Co-PI for Interface of Change

November 26, 2024

Frank Witmer, a man with a salt-and-pepper beard and oval glasses leans over a woman with dark brown long hair, both of them facing a dual-monitor computer setup within a semi-circle podium desk. Behind them is a planetarium projection screen showing a 3D-modeled aerial view of mountains and a glacial lake. Witmer has a serious, focused expression on his face. He wears a blue collared shirt, patterned with a grid, and a red fleece vest. — Photo by James R. Evans.
Frank Witmer and UAA Planetarium Manager Omega Smith in 2018 working on a visualization of Witmer's work on the Alaska EPSCoR "Alaska Adapting to Changing Environments" (Alaska ACE) Southcentral Test Case, which analyzed drivers of change in the Kenai River watershed.

Meet Frank Witmer, UAA co-PI for the Interface of Change project, faculty member and computational geography of the UAA Computer Science & Engineering department.

Remote sensing allows Witmer to study complex patterns of change across landscapes, ranging from the effects of wars - most recently, damage from bombings in Ukraine, climate change, invasive species, land use and land cover change, and how these phenomena interact.

For Interface of Change, Witmer will use remote sensing, image analysis, and statistical modeling to contribute towards understanding how environmental changes resulting from glacial melt will affect the abundance and harvest of salmon and eulachon (also called hooligan or candlefish) and other anadromous fish in the Gulf of Alaska.

Fellow researchers comprising the Interface of Change team studying environmental change and anadromous fish include stream researchers Jordan Jenckes (UAA), Jason Fellman (UAS), and Eran Hood (UAS), as well as fisheries biologist Erik Schoen (UAF), ground imaging scientist Jens Munk (UAA), statistical engineer Matt Kupilik (UAA), and UAA undergraduate student Maxim Ischuk who assists Witmer with satellite imagery analysis.

Witmer will combine satellite imagery analysis with historical USGS sensor data, as well as stream and lake field data gathered by Jenckes, Fellman, and Hood and their field crews.

Using infrared, shortwave infrared, and thermal satellite imagery, Witmer can analyze surface reflectance as a proxy measurement for water turbidity, temperature, or other qualities. Surface reflectance measures the different amounts of solar radiation reflecting off different kinds of Earth surfaces, for example, water, vegetation, concrete, or bare soil. This results in different color values in each pixel of a satellite image.

Looking at a satellite image of Jenckes’ team’s sampling and sensor sites in Kachemak Bay, the color of the few pixels clustered around each of the on-the-ground sensors can be correlated to the turbidity and temperature results from the samples and sensors. Witmer will then use those values to train a model to correspond the satellite imagery data with the temperature and turbidity in Kachemak Bay and in Southeast Alaska.

To understand how these environmental conditions affect important fish species, Schoen will then incorporate Witmer’s data into fish population models. In addition to Witmer’s remotely sensed data, these analyses will also use streamflow and oceanographic measurements, predictions from climate models, and fish population data compiled and used in collaboration with Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G), the Native Village of Eyak, and other partners. Ultimately, their findings will serve as a resource for communities to understand and adapt to changes in fish abundance.

Witmer is a familiar face with EPSCoR. Hired in 2014 as an EPSCoR new faculty hire, Witmer contributed to the previous Alaska EPSCoR project, “Alaska Adapting to Changing Environments” (Alaska ACE), which took place from 2012 to 2018.

Alaska ACE research focused on the adaptive capacity of Alaskan communities: the mechanisms that enable communities to effectively respond to environmental and social changes. Witmer studied landscape changes on the Kenai Peninsula, and he worked with the Coordination, Integration and Synthesis (CIS) Group.

Witmer lead several data visualization projects with EPSCoR. In 2017, Witmer and UAA Planetarium and Visualization Theater (PVT) director Omega Smith created a flyover video tour of the Kenai River watershed, which incorporated historic aerial imagery of development and of a retreating glacier. This video was also shown in the UAA Planetarium and Visualization Theater (PVT). Witmer also contributed to the SalmonSim project, an immersive salmon visualization program that takes the player through the salmon life cycle and demonstrates how salmon are affected by their environment.

As Witmer rejoins Alaska EPSCoR on our current project, Interface of Change, Witmer is excited to help out, continue working closely with Jordan Jenckes, and consider new visualization possibilities for the Alaska EPSCoR Data Visualization team’s mobile planetarium dome and the future new planetarium at the Museum of the North.