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Brandon Heung (Grad 2011 & 2017)

I have very fond memories of the (long) time that I spent in the Department of Geography for my BSc (Hons.) in the Physical Geography program (2006-2011) and in the PhD program (2011-2017). During the early years of my undergraduate, I honestly did not know what I would like to specialize in or what my future looked like as a General Science student; however, this all changed when I took the introductory Physical Geography course, which was taught by the late (and great) Dr. Owen Hertzman. Here, Owen transformed our thinking by encouraging us to think about the Earth from a whole-system perspective and helping us understand the interconnectedness between the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere, as well as how humans interact with the physical environment. Fun fact: prior to Owen’s tenure at SFU, he helped shaped the Environmental Sciences program at Dalhousie University (where I work)!

Throughout my undergraduate, I was exposed to many different and exciting disciplines—climatology, hydrology, and geomorphology to name a few—however, my heart was always in soil science. Perhaps this had to do with a combination of me loving to dig holes as a youngster and having a great teacher in Dr. Margaret Schmidt. The soil not only sustains humanity by providing us with food and fibre, but it also plays a huge role in mitigating climate change, ensuring water security, and providing a whole host of other vital ecosystem services. In 2009, through the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Assistant program, I was afforded the opportunity to work in Margaret’s lab during the summer semester, where I developed my skills in carrying out field work and getting my hands dirty. Through a similar internship program in 2010 I was introduced to predictive digital soil mapping—a subdiscipline of soil science that aims to apply quantitative, data-driven approaches towards understanding soil variability over space and time. This area of research was particularly exciting because it was an emerging area of research in Canada, and it integrates techniques in soil science, GIS, remote sensing, and computing—all skills that I developed in the Physical Geography program.

In 2011, I enrolled in the MSc program in the Department of Geography and later transferred to the PhD program in 2013, which I completed in 2017. Here, my PhD was on advancing the use of machine-learning techniques in mapping soil types in the Lower Fraser Valley and the Okanagan-Kamloops Valley. This experience was exciting because Margaret and I, in collaboration with Dr. Chuck Bulmer from the BC Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, were all learning how to do this work. Our provincial soil survey team were really the first in Canada in producing digital soil maps.

Reflecting upon my graduate career, I think the diversity of research interests and projects amongst the graduate students and faculty provided the environment for me to develop into a more well-rounded researcher today (so I would like to think). Sometimes as researchers, we tend to silo ourselves—in particular, between the natural and social sciences. However, this was certainly not the case in the Department of Geography.

Towards the end of my PhD in 2017, I wanted to expand what I have learnt in BC and map soils around the country. To do so, I did a two-week stint at the University of Saskatchewan to apply soil mapping techniques to drone-acquired data to map salt-affected soils to support precision management of agricultural fields. After that, I spent four months as a postdoctoral researcher with the Canadian Forest Service of Natural Resources Canada to map soil types in northern Ontario to support enhanced forest resource inventories. In that same year, I was appointed to a faculty position in the Department of Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture, Dalhousie University.

At Dalhousie and through my Soil-Landscapes Analysis & Modelling Lab, I am expanding upon my PhD work, where I am now applying machine learning and digital soil mapping techniques to support drone-based precision agriculture, forest resource inventories and ecosystem modelling, soil biodiversity surveys for Atlantic Canada, and the development of national-scale, soil infrastructure. In addition, I have the great fortune of leading the Canadian Digital Soil Mapping Working Group of the Canadian Society of Soil Science, where I get the opportunity to train the next generation of soil surveys. Lastly, I am also very proud to be a continuing contributor to SFU’s Department of Geography as an Adjunct Professor and by supporting graduate students there.

I am very thankful to the Department of Geography. The research excellence and quality of people there were instrumental in shaping my career.