Emily Wilkin's CAS Internship with the NPS

In the summers of 2018 & 2019, CAS trainee Emily Wilkins interned with the NPS under the mentorship of Adam Milnor. As an intern, Emily conducted a study to understand the accuracy of using geotagged social media data as a proxy for park visitation. Emily placed 12 infrared trail counters on trails throughout the North Cascades National Park Complex and collected data throughout the summer. Emily also downloaded Flickr and Twitter data to compare to the trail counter data.

Through this research, Emily was able to understand how weather and future climate change impact the spatial behavior of visitors on public lands.

Emily gained a skillset in using infrared trail counters, social media streaming, and increased her competency in programming in R and Python.