Echospace

Echospace

Applied Physics Lab & eScience Institute

University of Washington

Ocean Acoustics + Data Science

We are a diverse group of researchers whose work centers around extracting knowledge from large volumes of ocean acoustic data, which contain rich information about animals ranging from zooplankton, fish, to marine mammals. Integrating physics-based models and data-driven methods, our current work focuses on mining water column sonar data and spans a broad spectrum from developing computational methods, building open source software and cloud applications, to joint analysis of acoustic observations and ocean environmental variables. A parallel but closely related focus of our research involves using echolocating bats and toothed whales as biological model systemss for adaptive and distributed ocean sensing.

Research areas:

  • Acoustical oceanography
  • Machine learning in ocean acoustics
  • Fisheries acoustics
  • Animal echolocation / bioacoustics
  • Data systems and workflows
  • Data science in oceanography

Recent news!

All news»

[11/30/2021] New paper “Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring” was published in PLOS One!

[10/30/2021] New preprint “Echopype: A Python library for interoperable and scalable processing of water column sonar data for biological information” was posted on arXiv!

[10/28/2021] Emilio and Wu-Jung gave the IOOS DMAC webinar on “Scalable, interoperable processing of water column sonar data for biological applications using the echopype Python package”.

[10/05/2021] Wu-Jung gave the UW Data Science Seminar on “Building a toolbox for studying marine ecology using large ocean sonar datasets”.

[09/21/2021] Wu-Jung and Linda successfully completed this summer’s fieldwork evaluating the use of an ADCP-equipped glider as a boiological monitoring tool. Check out NOAA Exploration’s coverage of this mission!

Meet the Team

Principal Investigators

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Wu-Jung Lee

Senior Oceanographer

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Valentina Staneva

Senior Data Scientist

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Emilio Mayorga

Senior Oceanographer

Researchers

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Don Setiawan

Research Software Engineer

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Derya Gumustel

Research Assistant

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Linda Nguyen

Research Assistant

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Imran Majeed

Undergraduate Research Assistant

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Aditya Krishna

Undergraduate Research Assistant

Alumni

Kavin Nguyen

Now: Graduate student, UW-ECE

Open positions

2022 CICOES postdoc fellowship program now accepting applications!

We welcome researchers to come work with us at Echospace through the CICOES postdoc program!

Projects

Machine learning in fisheries acoustics

Accelerating information extraction from fisheries acoustic data through a cloud-based machine learning workflow.

Scalable, cloud-native processing of water column sonar data

Accelerating ocean exploration through cloud-native processing of active ocean sonar data.

ADCP-equipped underwater glider as a distributed biological sensing tool

Enabling distributed, persistent observation of mid-trophic zooplankton and fish using autonomous underwater gliders equipped with acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs).

Pattern discovery from long-term echosounder time series

Developing algorithms to discover prominent spatio-temporal patterns of animal movement and grouping behavior observed in sonar echoes using data from the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI).

Modeling target search by echolocating toothed whales

Modeling the echolocation-based target search behavior of toothed whales as an information-seeking process.

Software

Echopype

A Python package that enhances the interoperability and scalability in ocean sonar processing.

Echo Statistics

Matlab code to reproduce all figures in an in-depth tutorial on echo statistics.

Recent Publications

Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) acoustic foraging behavior and applications for long term monitoring

Compact representation of temporal processes in echosounder time series via matrix decomposition

We developd a data-driven methodology based on matrix decomposition to build compact representation of long-term echosounder time series using intrinsic features in the data.
Compact representation of temporal processes in echosounder time series via matrix decomposition

Echo statistics associated with discrete scatterers: A tutorial on physics-based methods

From basic foundational concepts to advanced topics in modeling the statistics of echoes from discrete scatterers, inspired by sonar observation of marine organisms.
Echo statistics associated with discrete scatterers: A tutorial on physics-based methods

Macroscopic observations of diel fish movements around a shallow water artificial reef using a mid-frequency horizontal-looking sonar

Mid-frequency sonar provides a first-of-the-kind macroscopic observation of the nightly foraging runs of fish inhabiting a shallow-water artificial reef in northern Gulf of Mexico.
Macroscopic observations of diel fish movements around a shallow water artificial reef using a mid-frequency horizontal-looking sonar

Contact

  • echospace@uw.edu
  • 1013 NE 40th St, Seattle, WA 98105
  • Henderson Hall, University of Washington