Earth Scientist, Remote Sensing Scientist
Dr.Shashank Bhushan
(He/him/ours)
Biospheric Sciences Laboratory (618)
Did you always know that you wanted to study Earth Sciences?
Many of my friends knew what they wanted to work on from a very early age, while others stumbled across their profession later in life. For me, it was the latter.
When I was in fourth grade (2004), there came a Bollywood movie named Swades, where a very famous Indian actor named Shah Rukh Khan was the project scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, and his character worked at Goddard. That was the first time I came across NASA and realized that someone can have a career in predicting and measuring rainfall. I quickly forgot the movie, however, as I progressed through school. I then ended up enrolling in an Applied Geology course during undergrad based on my marks obtained in a standardized test, which I thought would be like geography. I personally struggled in my early years to connect with more conventional hard rock geology, until I discovered remote sensing during my internships and learned how we can use this technique to study remote glaciers. Only after my final year undergraduate internship at the University of Washington, I thought that maybe I could be a full-time Earth Scientist after my undergrad.
Now when I come to office and see the model of GPM in Bldg. 33, I chuckle inside every time, thinking little did I know back in 2004 that I would be working at the same place where Shah Rukh Khan worked in Swades! I, however, work more with the satellite whose model is across the aisle from GPM –– ICESat-2!
What is your research focus?
On a broad level, my research seeks to explore and understand how different systems on our planet Earth function using satellite remote sensing observations. During my undergraduate and graduate school, I used remote sensing to study mountain glaciers in High Mountain Asia, while also collaborating with friends to study high altitude hazards and developing methods to measure terrestrial snowpack.
To study glaciers, I developed skills in photogrammetry, which is the art and science of making measurements from photographs. As glaciers flow like rivers of ice (yes, they move!), we can apply photogrammetry workflows to optical imagery acquired by satellites at different times in the year to measure the speed with which they move. If we have images of the same spot collected from different view angles and perspectives, we can use the same techniques our eyes use to perceive depth and make 3D models (or topography maps) of the Earth’s surface. Comparing 3D models from different times, we can measure how much snow has accumulated during the winters, and how much ice and snow melted during the summers. A key aspect of my PhD work was to measure these glacier changes on seasonal to annual time scales. With these measurements, we can understand changes to the glacier surface due to seasonal changes in atmospheric forcings, with the eventual goal of connecting the seasonal changes of mountain glaciers to downstream hydrology applications.
Tell us about the research projects you are currently working on.
I am currently wrapping up two research projects funded through the Decadal Survey Incubation program, both focused on fusing optical photogrammetry observations with lidar measurements.
In the first project, I developed techniques that combine the wide-area mapping capabilities of optical photogrammetry with the highly precise but sparse lidar observations from NASA's ICESat-2 satellite. This fusion approach delivers the accuracy of sparse lidar measurements at very high resolution across large areas, essentially getting the best of both worlds.
My second project involves developing a geometric harmonization framework that produces analysis-ready data cubes from topography measurements collected by different techniques: satellite photogrammetry, dense airborne lidar, and sparse satellite altimetry from missions like ICESat-2 and GEDI. Through my work at the Biospheric Sciences Lab (BSL), I've come to appreciate how challenging vegetation structure measurement can be, with each technique having distinct advantages and limitations.
To provide more robust vegetation structure measurements, we first need to properly quantify each technique's strengths and constraints. My collaboration with University of Washington colleagues has been crucial in creating a data cube where observations from different techniques were all acquired near simultaneously. This temporal alignment sets the stage for making detailed, meaningful comparisons between measurement approaches.
What aspect of your work excites you the most?
At this stage of my career, I often find that how I'm managing and developing my projects excites me as much as the actual science questions themselves. For instance, I'm really excited about learning to do deep, focused work while effectively contributing to two to four projects in any given year. As an early-career researcher, I want to be available to technically and emotionally support my colleagues on shared projects, while also carving out uninterrupted time to make meaningful science contributions of my own. This "project management learning journey" has probably become an unexpected source of excitement in my work.
I'm also excited by how my daily research draws on skills from different high school subjects, with trigonometry, physics, vectors, computer programming, writing, and geography all coming together in my work. Having context for why we study subjects was something I always missed growing up, so I find it genuinely satisfying that I can now connect these different pieces together every day.
Tell us about a unique or interesting component of your work-life balance.
This is something I'm actively working on. As a child, I followed professional wrestling, and I remember Stevie Richards, one of the wrestlers explaining that young wrestlers want to try everything and push their limits without taking care of their bodies—until they get their first major injury. Only then do they learn to perform at their best while protecting themselves.
I believe this applies to research careers, too. After several burnout experiences in recent years, I've adopted the philosophy of "doing good science without getting hurt." Like wrestlers, it's easy for early-career researchers to get so excited that we dissolve the boundaries between work and personal life.
I'm currently working on maintaining strict work schedules and developing better focus techniques, so I can give my best during work hours and then fully transition to other aspects of life. My friend Michelle Hu suggested making concrete plans for non-work hours, which prevents me from making excuses like "this work is so important I need to continue through the evening." Now, as the workday ends, my mind naturally shifts to thinking about what my wife and I have planned for the evening with friends.
A huge part of those evening and weekend plans involves cooking and sharing food with friends and loved ones. Living in America has given me incredible opportunities to learn about the different cultures my friends come from, and food is one of the best ways to build lifelong bonds!
Recently, I've gotten really into making coffee at home. My friend and mentor Anthony Arendt introduced me to espresso making, and I've fallen in love with how small changes in the extraction process can drastically transform the quality of the coffee.
So, while I'm still figuring out my future research interests and goals, I think I'm pretty confident about my life after science: I would want to open a restaurant specializing in food from around the world, where every meal would be topped off with tasty coffee! I'm hoping to maintain this balanced approach in the years ahead!
What skills are most useful to you in your work, and where did you develop those skills?
A key requirement for making precise photogrammetry measurements is to ensure pixels of the same spot on the ground acquired at different times and potentially by different sensors line up on top of each other. We call this geometric calibration/harmonization. This is a fundamental requirement which needs to be properly taken care of in all kinds of optical/thermal remote sensing observations.
Not only did geometric calibration improve the data quality required to answer my graduate school research questions, but it has now opened up opportunities to collaborate with teams working on active and future NASA missions. This specialized technical expertise has created new work avenues I couldn't have imagined when I was first learning these methods. I am grateful that I got the opportunity to hone these skills during graduate school, as it sometimes felt disconnected from more of the science analysis and machine learning application work my friends were doing, but I guess it all turns out well in the long run!
If you were to expand your current research focus, what new topic(s) would you explore?
Since starting at Goddard, I've learned so much about vegetation science through collaborations with my BSL colleagues. We've been fortunate to have two new Research & Analysis (R&A) projects selected or selectable where we'll be studying shallow-water bathymetry (water depth and underwater bed topography) for coastal systems and measuring summer melt over the Greenland Ice Sheet. I'm also excited to contribute my technical expertise in geometric calibration which I developed through previous R&A projects to NASA missions. The idea of applying my research skills to improve operational projects is really satisfying.
I realize that changing science focuses comes with the compromise of losing some depth in any one area. However, I hope that by studying diverse systems, I can develop broader research questions that examine the synergies between these systems as they change and adapt in the coming years.
So, in the coming years, I'm looking forward to learning more about vegetation, coastal geomorphology and ice sheets, while also contributing technically to operational measurement projects. Nothing is set in stone, but I hope to revisit this reflection in the future and continue doing research to learn more about our mysterious planet Earth!
Published Date: .
Hometown:
Patna, India
Undergraduate Degree:
MSc. (Tech) in Applied Geology through the 5 Year Integrated Course (BS+MS), Indian Institute of Technology (ISM) Dhanbad, India
Post-graduate Degree:
Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA