On July 17 – 22, Clash and partner Earthscope hosted a pilot graduate summer school, led by postdoc Stratis Karantanellis and steering committee member, Sean Gallen. The program offered an immersive learning experience using a mock hazard response team effort that resembled real-world study of coordinated hazard event data by interdisciplinary teams. The pilot’s collaborative, interdisciplinary focus around the breadth of land-surface hazards and their cascade is a distinguishing theme separate from more discipline-specific programs in geomorphic hazards (such as the LARAM and iRALL Summer Schools that focus specifically on landslides). Participants were exposed to various field technologies to measure land surface change in the Rocky Mountains, CO, affected by the 2020 Cameron Peak fire. Students gained practical knowledge in team project planning, data acquisition, processing, and analysis using cutting-edge geodetic techniques, including Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Photogrammetry, Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), and differential GNSS with RTK corrections. Theoretical and practical skills advanced graduate students’ engagement with technology for their ongoing research efforts, while also fostering cohort building of interdisciplinary scientists from a range of institutions and cultural backgrounds. The program emphasized inclusive teaching practices around technical training, supported by education experts and technicians from the NSF-supported EarthScope Consortium. 162 applications were received for 20 spots in this course in just 4 days of advertisement, which demonstrates the broad interest of graduate students for such training.
