Tiaamé Medina

Advisor: Dr. Reginald Blake

My full name is Timothy Aaron Medina, and I call myself Tiaamé for short, pronouns they/them. My number one favorite hobby is photography. When I was young, I remember getting an eerie sensation from photographs--the place/person in the picture felt alive somehow? Many times, I would share my likes/dislikes about the images I saw and remember, to this day, someone responding to my observations with the phrase “picture tells a thousand words." Not until I was much older did I realize that phrase was the sort of reassurance my younger self needed. It is okay to have a distinct perspective of the world.

In my experience of the earth and environmental sciences, there are different views about the uses of curiosity. In my view, curiosity doesn't come to much without the power of imagination and grit. So, like a photograph that I enjoy seeing various times, as a Ph.D. student I look forward to seeing what new world I may find when using images from satellite remote sensing to learn about how food grows in the city.