New faces at the GI: Michael Roddewig
Michael Roddewig joined UAF Oct. 16 as assistant professor in a dual appointment between the Geophysical Institute and the Department of Electrical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Mines. Contact Roddewig at mrroddewig@alaska.edu or 907-474-5936.
What are your main research interests and what projects will you be working on?
I develop instruments for optical remote sensing of the environment and for military applications. In the summer of 2023 I’ll be working on a field experiment back in Montana using green lidar, hyperspectral cameras and polarization imagers to develop new algorithms for retrieval of chlorophyll in inland lakes. I’m also working with Rich Collins on the new HAARP lidar and working on development of a polarimetric frequency-modulated continuous-wave (FMCW) coherent lidar with Montana State University.
Tell us a little about your background.
I was born in Florida and grew up in Virginia outside Washington, DC. I received my PhD from Montana State University in 2017. For my dissertation I built an airborne fisheries lidar system to locate invasive lake trout in Yellowstone Lake. That lidar is one of two that currently exist in the United States.
After I graduated, I went to work for a photonics company in Bozeman building instruments around nonlinear optical crystals. I also worked part time for a company mapping rivers using acoustic Doppler profilers. In 2019 I was hired back at Montana State as the engineering lead on an Air Force lidar project. In 2022 I started a company with my wife to work on commercializing a drone version of the fisheries lidar I developed for my PhD.
What made you want to come to UAF and to the GI?
I heard about the position through Rich Collins and was excited by all the different projects at the GI from the HAARP lidar to the UARC. UAF reminded me a bit of my alma mater, Michigan Tech, where the snow, cold, and isolation means the people are all a little bit crazy. My wife and I were also excited for the opportunity to live in Fairbanks.
Tell us about your interests outside of your research and your work?
My wife and I are dog mushers. I met her by volunteering as her handler for one season in Montana and we started dating that spring (this is a recurring theme among musher couples). We have 19 Alaskan huskies and are thrilled to able to run the dogs from our house in Fairbanks (we used to have to truck the dogs 45 minutes to run). Outside of dog mushing we enjoy riding mountain sleds [snowmachines] and backcountry and cross-country skiing (sometimes pulled by dogs). We’re winter people! I’m also an accomplished DJ.