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NCALM: The National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) has, in the past six years, discovered an ancient civilization, charted land erosion following hurricanes, created real-time flood maps for urban areas and identified infrastructures across the country in danger of failing. The center’s core technology is Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR. With LiDAR, researchers fly a plane over an area they want to map, shooting hundreds of thousand of laser bursts per second at the ground. How that light returns to its source can be used to create extremely detailed topographical maps, even through dense vegetation and murky water. NCALM is based at the University of Houston and is operated in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley with support from the National Science Foundation. NCALM is the administrative home of the multidisciplinary Geosensing Systems Engineering and Sciences graduate program at the University of Houston, the only graduate program of its kind in the world. Visit ncalm.cive.uh.edu for more information.

GSES: The Geosensing Systems Engineering and Sciences (GSES) program at UH is the only graduate program of its kind in the world. The interdisciplinary graduate education and research program offers both M.S. And Ph.D. degrees and prepares graduates for successful careers in the broader geospatial community. The program is administered through the world-renowned National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), which was recently featured in National Geographic and other international media outlets for uncovering an ancient civilization hidden deep within the La Mosquitia Rainforest in Honduras. Visit ncalm.cive.uh.edu/gses/geosensing for more information.