astronomy

Heather McNairn

Heather McNairn is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Heather McNairn rather than just read about it. In short: Heather McNairn, is a federal research scientist at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. She specializes in remote sensing technology, and her research focuses on the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites (SARs) to monitor the condition of crops and soils.

Key takeaways

Heather McNairn belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Heather McNairn to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Heather McNairn from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Heather McNairn, is a federal research scientist at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. She specializes in remote sensing technology, and her research focuses on the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites (SARs) to monitor the condition of crops and soils.

Biography McNairn received a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, in 1987, a Masters in Soil Science from the University of Guelph, in 1991, and a Ph.D. in Geography from Université Laval in 1999.

Career McNairn is also an adjunct professor at Carleton University and the University of Manitoba. She has more than 25 years of experience researching methods to monitor crops and soil using multi-spectral, hyperspectral and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors. Throughout her career, she has led numerous national and international research teams and has written over 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers. McNairn has developed new methods to derive land and soil information, such as land cover, crop residue, tillage, soil moisture, and crop bio-physical characteristics, from Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites. She also specializes in developing pre-processing image analysis approaches using multispectral and hyperspectral sensors. Dr. McNairn led a 3-year research project which developed the methodology to integrate radar and optical satellite data to classify crop types. This method is now used operationally by AAFC to produce a national map of crops, each year. Her current projects include developing innovative approaches to estimate soil moisture, Leaf Area Index and biomass from SAR sensors. These methods provide temporal and spatial information on soils and crops for use in applications such as flood and drought forecasting, and on farm decision making. Her research team also worked with industry and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) to develop a new user-friendly application called the Soil Moisture Toolkit. This Toolkit ingests data from satellites such as the Canadian RADARSAT-2 satellite and generates maps of surface soil moisture. The Toolkit is freely available and is used by remote sensing practitioners around the world. McNairn collaborates with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency, as well as many Canadian and international research institutions. Dr. McNairn led a Canada-U.S. research effort in 2012 which gathered soil moisture and crop biomass data to assist NASA in calibrating and validating their Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite – a system that provides global maps of soil moisture. This 2012 experiment involved 75 researchers from Canadian and U.S. universities, Environment Canada, the Province of Manitoba, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA. The success of the 2012 campaign led to a request by NASA’s SMAP team to repeat this experiment in 2016. This 2016 data is helping NASA refine soil moisture maps over global sites of annually cropped land. McNairn is currently collaborating with researchers in The Netherlands, Italy, India and Chile to develop SAR methods to support information requirements for the agriculture sector. In 2016 she was awarded an OECD fellowship and worked for three months in Chile to assist the Instituto de Investigaciones Agropecuraris (INIA) to develop remote sensing tools for use in variable rate irrigation. McNairn is using data from the RADARSAT Constellation Mission launched in June 2019 to refine her methods to determine crop type, crop health and soil moisture from remote sensing. McNairn is the co-chair of the Inspire, Develop, Empower, Advance (IDEA) Program, an international leadership initiative. Their mission is to Inspire, Develop, Empower, and Advance (IDEA) members of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) and affiliates of accredited societies who are interested in the fields of interest of the GRSS. The committee plans and organizes activities to advance engineers and scientists around the world and to inspire future generations by working with students at all academic levels.

Honours and awards 2012 Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal for her scientific contributions 2016 OECD Fellowship from the Co-operative Research Program

Interests McNairn has a second degree black belt in Karate, and for many years competed in point sparring. In 2009 she won a bronze medal in sparring at the World Karate and Kickboxing Council World Championships in Dublin, Ireland. She has since retired, and is now a certified fitness instructor teaching fitness classes at AAFC, and for the City of Ottawa.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Heather McNairn

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Heather McNairn claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Heather McNairn before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Heather McNairn ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Heather McNairn

In research: Heather McNairn appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Heather McNairn in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Heather McNairn is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Canadian women scientists, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canadian geographers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Heather McNairn outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Heather McNairn in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Heather McNairn means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Heather McNairn out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Heather McNairn in simple terms?

Why does Heather McNairn matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Heather McNairn?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Heather McNairn.