Computing grad students shine at national geospatial summer school

In August 2025, Boise State doctoral computing students Amirhossein (Amir) Montazeri and Juan Camilo Rojas Lucero, attended the national Institute for Geospatial Understanding through an Integrative Discovery Environment (I-GUIDE) summer school at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research campus in Boulder, Colorado.

This fully funded, week-long program, brought together graduate students, postdocs and early-career researchers from across the U.S. under the theme of "Spatial AI for Extreme Events and Disaster Resilience."

The main goals of the summer school were to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and convergence science by the next generation of scientists and to investigate how spatial AI and data-driven approaches may assist communities in better understanding, predicting, and responding to disasters like wildfires, flood, extreme weather and heat effects, while also offering a platform for collaboration with leading scientists and transforming data into useful insights.

Camilo Rojas Lucero, mentored by biology associate professor Trevor Caughlin and School of the Environment professor Jodi Brandt, attended the summer school for the first time and found it to be "an incredibly valuable experience."

"The week in Boulder gave me the chance to catch up on the latest advances in remote sensing and to see how spatial AI is being used to address urgent challenges like wildfires, floods, urban planning, and other climate-related disasters. I especially appreciated the opportunity to work with researchers from different disciplines on real-world problems, which broadened my perspective and sparked new ideas for my own work. The hands-on training in geospatial tools and machine learning was both practical and inspiring, and the discussions reminded me of how important collaboration is in building resilience," Camilo Rojas Lucero said.

Caughlin celebrated his mentee's accomplishment, sharing that National Science Foundation-funded workshops are very competitive, and that Camilo Rojas Lucero was the first student from his research group to be admitted after several years of applications.

Despite also being a first time attendee, Montazeri won the "Memory Master" award, which recognized his ability to manage large-scale datasets efficiently on a supercomputer, handling and processing complex data in memory with speed and accuracy.

For Montazeri this award is an accomplishment, but also "a reminder that I need to continue pushing myself to learn more."

"While it recognizes the skills I have now, it also highlights the wide range of abilities I still need to develop to address the challenges and gaps I may face in future projects. It motivates me to keep growing and improving in high-performance computing and data-intensive research," Montazeri said.

Montazeri's mentor, associate professor of civil engineering Moji Sadegh, applauded his student's accomplishment, saying "what I really appreciate about Amirhossein is his curious mind and his attitude toward learning. He comprehends the information and absorbs it quickly, and thinks deeply to try to consider all aspects of the problem and devise a compelling and comprehensive solution."

"I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Mojtaba Sadegh for creating an environment that encourages growth, learning, and exploration," Montazeri said. "Their support and guidance made it possible for me to build the skills and confidence needed to achieve this recognition."

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