Grant Winner – Yvette Gonzalez

Sky Indicators x Climate: A Noctilucent Cloud Observation Mobile App Toward Climate Monitoring

Yvette is a bioastronautics and atmospheric researcher, spacesuit technician, and human resilience expert. 

She is a member of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics, Native Americans in Science, and the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences.

Through her project, Sky Indicators x Climate, Yvette plans to collect high-quality images and videos of the extremely rare noctilucent clouds from one of the most optimal locations in Europe. Recently, these clouds have been appearing more often and further south, which could be a direct result of an increase in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane.

Yvette plans to analyze existing data from the Facebook citizen-science group and create a citizen-science mobile application to document noctilucent clouds observations around the world. The project aims to understand the human influence on a range of climate characteristics causing climate change.