LAND USE CONFERENCE SCHOLAR FROM SANTA BARBARA
COMPLETES SUMMER INTERNSHIP WITH NASA

Evan Lue, a masters candidate from the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, UC Santa Barbara and winner of a scholarship for the 2007 Land Use & Planning Conference, completed an internship with NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field.  Lue was assigned to a research project which was a collaboration between NASA and the National Park Service on the use of satellite imagery to monitor and manage forests in Yosemite National Park.

“I performed field work in Yosemite collecting data to measure the amount of vegetation in certain parts of the park,” said Lue.  Called “ground-truthing,” this procedure is used to confirm that the interpretation of data from the satellite was correct on the ground.  “This internship tied in nicely with my interest in land use,” said Lue.

Lue will complete his degree in Environmental Science and Management at Bren next spring.  His specialty will be conservation planning.  “The Land Use & Planning Conference was great because it was not an experience I could have had in the academic world,” Lue said.  “I was interested in hearing the case studies and see how what I am studying in school relates to the real world.”

The 2008 Central California Land Use & Planning Conference will be held on April 4 at the Sycamore Mineral Springs Resort in San Luis Obispo.