SWIM Alert (Smart Water & Invasive Monitoring) is a digital toolset developed by the MERIDIAN lab at Dalhousie University.
Our team is creating a flexible, AI-based environmental monitoring toolbox. SWIM Alert can accelerate response to environmental hazards with frequent imagery updates, and provides visual outputs that can help share knowledge with communities. We have completed a pilot study monitoring harmful algal blooms, and are creating new toolkits to monitor invasive species in coastal and forest biomes as we develop our minimum viable product.
Catherine Evans
Founder
Catherine is a Senior Data Analyst in the Faculty of Computer Science, with a specialty in developing machine learning applications that combine satellite imagery and environmental data. Catherine completed her masters in oceanography in 2023 with Dr. Paul Hill at Dalhousie University.
Catherine is passionate about digital innovations in coastal ecosystems, and has spent the last decade developing models and processing routines to visualize coastal ecosystems.
Dr. Christopher Whidden
Co-Founder, Principal Investigator
Dr. Whidden is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Dalhousie University. He develops efficient algorithms and software for NP-hard problems and Big Data, particularly in computational biology and oceans research. Dr. Whidden’s focuses on applying both algorithms theory and practical software development and algorithm engineering to create novel solutions to complex problems.
