Duncan J Irschick
@duncanirschick.bsky.social
160 followers 120 following 27 posts
Professor @UMASSAmherst; Director Digital Life Project (digitallife3d.org) #ecology#evolution #sharks #seaturtles #marinemammals #reptiles #amphibians
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
duncanirschick.bsky.social
A question - I realize that there may not be a good answer - is NSF still accepting proposals for Ecology/Evolution work, & does anyone know any awards are being given out? I'm working on an NSF grant with a colleague, and it's not clear from the outside what exactly is happening on the ground. TY!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
W/Laurens Howle (Duke) & Frank Fish (Westchester), we are releasing 3 3D models of marine mammals (Gray whale, Common Dolphin & Humpback whale). Johnson Martin created the models - funding by BOEM

Common Dolphin
skfb.ly/pxvuw
Gray Whale
skfb.ly/pxvus
Juvenile Humpback whale
skfb.ly/pxvuu
duncanirschick.bsky.social
New 3D model release! In collab w/Vienna Museum of Natural History, we retopologized and animated their 3D scan of an adult male Komodo dragon - Thanks to Mohammed Al Zubaidi and Josh Medina for CG work, and Viola Winkler for working with us! 😆🦎

3D model link
skfb.ly/pvWts
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Not sure - I'll see if there is a livecast and will let everyone know
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Very excited to give a seminar on our 3D work, and also a 3D photogrammetry workshop at Union college on April 29th! Special thanks to my amazing colleague Kate Feller for organizing this event! Details in the below link and poster 😃🐼🐬🐧

www.union.edu/templeton/ev...
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Thank you @physiologyfish.bsky.social and Joel for organizing this trip - it was pretty amazing to come to JCU and to see your lab and Queensland!
Reposted by Duncan J Irschick
physiologyfish.bsky.social
One of my amazing PhD students (Joel Gayford) - grateful we can have a week of brainstorming with his secondary supervisor - @duncanirschick.bsky.social - nature therapy for the win!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
That was an amazing time! I especially enjoyed the incredible, thoughtful and curious students I met. Thanks to the incredible rockstar @physiologyfish.bsky.social for arranging this and to JCU for hosting me!
Reposted by Duncan J Irschick
physiologyfish.bsky.social
Huge success… seminar and interactive workshop at JCU, full house for both!!!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Thanks Jodie! Being host by incredible scientists like you means a lot! JCU has a lot of first class faculty, students and staff!
Reposted by Duncan J Irschick
physiologyfish.bsky.social
We’re so excited to have you and honoured you are giving our visiting distinguished professor seminar at JCU this week!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Very excited to be giving a seminar and workshop at James Cook University in Australia this Wed, March 19th and Th, March 20th! Special thx to @physiologyfish.bsky.social and Joel Gayford for facilitating this seminar!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Very excited to be giving a seminar and workshop at James Cook University in Australia this Wed, March 19th and Th, March 20th! Special thx to @physiologyfish.bsky.social and Joel Gayford for facilitating this seminar!
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Thank you! I remember that paper :) Your kind words mean a lot coming from a really important - and classy - organization :}
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Special thanks to collaborators Chhandak Bagchi (lead author), Fredrik Christiansen, Subhransu Maji, and Josh Medina. Thx also to the Center for Data Science at UMASS Amherst and various undergrads and CS students who helped with the project! 😀🦎
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Results show that our model accurately tracks seasonal body condition changes. This automation can significantly reduce the time needed to calculate body conditions, enabling faster, large-scale whale health assessments. 🧵
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Trained on 468 annotated images, the model processes 8,958 drone images with 99.2% success. It estimates body length with 0.85% error and volume with 6.88% error, significantly speeding up body condition estimation while maintaining accuracy. 🧵
duncanirschick.bsky.social
New paper with colleagues! Bagchi et al published work in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation 😃

This ML model automatically extracts whale body length & volume from aerial images! Using Mask R-CNN, it detects whales, traces their body shape, and estimates the body axis. 🧵
duncanirschick.bsky.social
I want to thank Aaron Olsen, who did the bulk of the 3D reconstruction of Emma - a large (size unknown, ~14 foot female) Tiger Shark from the Bahamas. Johnson Martin also helped Aaron. Both were rock stars in this work! And thanks to Neil Hammerschlag, who provided images/video (like below)
duncanirschick.bsky.social
I also want to acknowledge Aaron Olsen - who did the bulk of the 3D reconstruction on Emma the tiger shark - and Johnson Martin, who worked with Aaron. Thank you both! 😀
duncanirschick.bsky.social
Special thanks to the following students for their amazing hard work on reconstructing 3D meshes from gopro footage

Will Nguyen (UMASS), Isabel French Luce (Amherst High), Liam Barry (Williston), and Josh Medina (UMASS). Special thanks also to Neil Hammerschlag for providing footage of Emma
duncanirschick.bsky.social
New 3D model release! W/Mystic aquarium, the Digital Life Project is releasing four 3D shark meshes (Epaulette shark, Sand Tiger Shark, & zebra shark), along w/tiger shark (Emma). We thank Gayle Sirpenski & the Mystic aquarium staff for their assistance. More info and download links below! :)😀👍
duncanirschick.bsky.social
New paper with colleagues! Zotos et al. used triaxial accelerometers, 3D modelling of live lizards, and behavioral analysis to build a new paradigm of reptile movement. Check out paper below!🦎

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/GVMA63...