Neither Ansel Dias nor Keith Kessens knew much about research in the field of computer science, let alone the idea that their computer science skills could be used to study, quite literally, another world.
Dias and Kessens are both incoming sophomores who spent their summer with the Letters & Science Summer of Excellence in Research (LASER) program, an eight-week undergraduate research program in which students within a wide range of STEM majors conduct research on their project of choice, mentored by UW–Madison faculty or staff members.
Dias and Kessens describe their project as being somewhat of an outlier in this year’s cohort. For one, their research subject centers on Venus, a planet more than 150 million miles away from us in our solar system. Their mentor, Sanjay Limaye (’77), is a Distinguished Scientist at the Space Science and Engineering Center who has been researching planetary atmospheres of other planets in our solar system since obtaining his Ph.D. at UW–Madison in 1977. He also collaborates internationally on research efforts such as the Japanese Akatsuki Climate Orbiter mission to Venus, founded almost two decades ago. The spacecraft currently orbits the planet, taking images of its weather patterns — and now those images are in the hands of undergraduate researchers.
Dias, a computer science major, had only taken one introductory astronomy course before starting in the LASER program. After matching with Limaye’s project, he had a lot to learn about what research entailed in this field — it was computational and data-heavy, and he had to learn the digital toolkits and terminology. He didn’t imagine this could be called research.
“Originally, I had no idea I was going to be doing research,” Dias says. “Your original conception of research when you come into college is hands-on — there are chemicals. But research can be a variety of things, including computer science.”
Kessens, a computer science and economics major, also had no background in astronomy. And like Dias, he hadn’t imagined a research setting where he could work flexibly wherever he wanted. He seized on the opportunity to code and develop his skills in the Python programming language outside of the classroom.
“I’d never really given research much thought. I didn’t know what kind of research to place with computer science or economics,” Kessens says. “What I’m doing now is very different from what I assumed it was. I’m not complaining, though.”
Dias and Kessens’ project is unique in another way: their collaboration involves trying to reach the same target in two different ways.
Venus has a thick atmosphere, dense with clouds. The Akatsuki orbiter has different cameras taking pictures at different wavelengths — from ultraviolet to infrared — and deducing properties of the planet’s clouds that can’t be seen with the human eye. In order to study those patterns or properties (like how fast the clouds are moving), Dias and Kessens first have to find an accurate mapping between the pixels in the pictures and the actual longitudinal and latitudinal position on Venus represented by that pixel. From then, their most important research goal is to retrieve the properties of the clouds from the variations in brightness over the planet.
Dias finds satisfaction in figuring things out, especially after being stuck and spending long hours at night solving a problem. His most intensive one involves calculating the expected location of Venus’ planetary center from the probe’s orbital and pointing information. He can then use this central point to calculate additional geometrical properties for each pixel. But the process is difficult and mathematically intensive.
Kessens, meanwhile, tries to find the same result — an accurate center of Venus. To do this, he has to find the planet’s outline from the image data while accounting for irregularities in the pixels on the illuminated portion of the planet. Keith uses these data points to calculate the illumination and geometric information for each pixel to determine how the planet’s clouds scatter across the atmosphere. He can then normalize the image, which means to correct the various distortions in the brightness of those pixels, to show how the planet would look if each pixel was illuminated by the Sun and viewed from the spacecraft. An obstacle he faces, however, is how to parse an enormous amount of data efficiently.
The challenges of projects like this, no matter how intensive they are, can be thrilling for some. Dias emphasizes how much finding a single solution can gratify or affirm even the longest scientific struggle.
“I’ve spent a lot of long hours at night working on this,” he says. “I didn’t have to. But figuring out the solution is so rewarding.”
Kessens hopes to take his experience into the larger tech industry and possibly work toward an honor in his majors. But even so, the doors are open for him to explore further research during his undergraduate years.
“I’m leaning more toward working in industry, but I think the research I’ll be doing as an undergrad will be pretty cool to see. Maybe I’ll change my mind and decide to do research,” Kessens says.
And while Dias echoes the same desire to build his career through the industry, his research in the LASER program has nevertheless deepened his idea of what research means and what it can do for a computer scientist.
“There’s some sort of fulfillment I get out of doing this. It’s space and computer science. It’s the best of both,” he says. “It does open you up to different paths of computer science.”