Sor Bello Melendez, a 2024 scholar of NOAA’s Educational Partnership Program with Minority-Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI), is making strides in the field of Earth science and environmental engineering. Originally from the Dominican Republic, Sor moved to New York in 2016 to pursue her studies, and is now a rising junior at the City College of New York. She is majoring in Earth System Science & Environmental Engineering and is on track to graduate in Spring 2027.
This past summer, Sor interned as a satellite data analyst with the NESDIS Office of Low Earth Observations, where she contributed to research evaluating equity in power restoration using satellite and socioeconomic data.
Her academic journey has been rich with hands-on research experiences, including a project on phytoremediation, where she cultivated plants to clean contaminated water samples affected by heavy metals. This project sparked her interest in exploring advanced environmental tools, and inspired her to teach herself GIS and remote sensing techniques during her internship. Using the QGIS program, she gained proficiency in working with imagery and creating shapefiles— skills that enhance her growing expertise in satellite data analysis.
During her internship at NOAA, Sor analyzed nighttime light imagery from the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which included the VIIRS Black Marble product. She integrated this data with zip code-level socioeconomic information from NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) and the 2022 Census report from the American Community Survey (ACS) utilizing GIS software. She was then able to evaluate equity in power restoration efforts in Lee County, Florida following Hurricane Ian, creating map visualizations to show power restoration timelines that offered valuable insights into disparities in post-disaster recovery.
Sor will discuss her work at this year’s annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in a presentation titled “Evaluating Socioeconomic Disparities in Power Restoration Efforts Following Hurricane Ian.”
Her mentors, Julie Hoover and Amy Leibrand, guided her in advanced data analysis and integration techniques. Sor’s collaboration with NOAA’s Low Earth Observations (LEO) and JPSS teams allowed her to gain valuable skills in satellite data observation and analysis, as well as the opportunity to work alongside experts from NOAA and NASA.
As part of this collaboration, Sor also was able to work with the NESDIS Communications team to film a fun, engaging Instagram reel alongside fellow intern, Aurora Baker, showcasing their shared passion for storytelling. Sor’s love for stories even extends beyond GIS and the camera—last year, she read 300 chapters of an online comic series in just two weeks!
Sor aims to continue blending her technical skills with her passion for environmental justice and community resilience. Her interests extend to environmental research and innovative problem-solving for sustainable solutions to environmental challenges.
“My ultimate goal as I complete my internship is to learn how the skills I learned can benefit my community,” Sor said. “During this internship, I learned how to identify vulnerable communities using different tools. I hope in the future to use this approach to help improve the environmental needs of my community.”