After the conclusion of the 2023 PiE conference, Sequoia’s VP Science & Technology Dr. Wayne Slade and President & CEO Dr. Ole Mikkelsen embarked on a week-long trip from south to north in Europe, visiting customers in Zürich, Switzerland; Geesthacht, Germany; and Bergen, Norway.
In Zürich they visited Eawag and Remote Sensing group leader Dr. Daniel Odermatt and Drs. Mortimer Werther, Abolfazl Rahaghi, Nathalie Dubois and PhD. Student Loe Maire to learn more about the advanced state of aquatic optics research in Switzerland and discuss Sequoia’s hyper-spectral scattering and absorption instruments, Hyper-bb and Hyper-a.
Eawag’s very nice facility in Dubendorf.
While Wayne took the train to Hamburg, Ole visited ETH Zürich to discuss the use of LISSTs in hydropower research at Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology (VAW). He also managed to get his photo taken after discussing LISST-AOBS, LISST-SL2, LISST-200X, and LISST-OST with Carolin Friz, Dahal Sudesh, and lab leader Professor Ismail Albayrak. Carolin gave him a tour of the impressive – and large! – facilities where VAW build physical models.
Ole @VAW
Impressive physical model facilities @VAW!
In Geesthacht, just outside of Hamburg, they visited Dr. Rüdiger Röttgers and Ph.D. student Mike Novak at Helmholz-Zentrum Hereon. Dr. Röttgers is the lucky owner of both a HydroScat-6 (a 1990’s design) and a Hyper-bb (a late 2010’s design), so we got a chance to take a picture of the two side-by-side. Quite the development in instrumentation size over 30 years! Dr. Röttgers also uses LISST-VSF and LISST-200X for his research.
HydroScat-6 and Hyper-bb
From Germany they went to Bergen? and visited Dr. Daniel Koestner, Dr. Shea Cheatham, Professor Børge Hamre, Professor Arne Skodvin Kristoffersen, and Senior Engineer Yi-Chun Chen at Institute of Physics and Technology at University of Bergen. The group, led by Profs. Hamre and Kristoffersen has been extremely prolific in collecting data with their LISST-VSF and LISST-200X since acquiring them in 2018, supplemented by Dr. Koestner’s LISST-VSF work at Scripps. They have published a significant number of the VSF papers on Sequoia’s website.
Bergen or bust – or?
From his hotel room, Ole could observe diffraction of the lights from the Bergen Airport parking lot in the sunshade curtains – an appropriate conclusion to the trip.
Streetlights as seen through the window in Ole’s hotel room when curtains were drawn open.
Streetlights as seen when the sunshade curtains were drawn close, diffracting the light.
All in all, Wayne and Ole had an excellent trip!
Great trip!