Miles Walker

Miles Walker

Biography

Miles Walker is a rising senior from Minneapolis, Minnesota, studying cybersecurity
at Hampton University. He has a deep curiosity for human-computer interaction and
sociotechnical systems, a curiosity that sparked when his passion for social justice intersected
with his technical college coursework. In the future, Miles intends to pursue a PhD and conduct
research in human-computer interaction. He hopes to explore how computing technology can
be leveraged to tackle societal issues such as equity, homelessness, and discrimination. At
Hampton, Miles conducts additional research within his department and is heavily involved
with the Freddye T. Davy Honors College and the Cybersecurity Club. In 2024, he was a
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) intern at the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), where he performed and presented research on the impact
of human factors in real-world cybersecurity incidents. In his free time, he enjoys gaming,
running, and cooking new recipes.

Applying NISAR Satellite Data for Combating Agricultural Drought in Angola
Miles Walker1, Sharif Islam2, Danielle Wood2
1Department of Computer Science, Hampton University
2Space Enabled Research Group, Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Angola has made significant progress since its civil war ended in 2002. However, the country
still suffers from a high level of food insecurity and malnutrition, which is exacerbated by its
most prolonged drought in four decades. The drought has significantly impacted Angola’s agricultural
production, contributing to the aforementioned food insecurity along with other public
health concerns. MIT’s Space Enabled research group has been working closely with Angola to
develop a decision support system (DSS) to aid decision-makers in navigating the crisis. This
project builds on past work by utilizing satellite data from the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture
Radar (NISAR) mission to assess drought conditions. By analyzing soil moisture information,
this project aims to produce new insights into Angola’s drought and how to combat it. The
soil moisture data provided by the NISAR mission were converted to root-zone soil moisture
(RZSM) and subsequently used to classify drought severity (D0-D4) for Angola. MATLAB
was also used to enable deeper analysis. This approach has produced a preliminary mapping
of drought in parts of the country. The findings of this research have the potential to improve
policy decisions in Angola and inspire intervention efforts in communities impacted by drought
around the world.