Ramesh Sivanpillai, a University of Wyoming professor, has been nominated as the project manager to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona.
Sivanpillai will work remotely to make maps, provide supplies and help the neighboring towns; the information is provided by satellites all across the world. Hurricane Fiona was a category four hurricane that made landfall at the end of September, causing mass destruction in Eastern Canada and the Caribbean.
“When there is a disaster, these agencies, if their satellite is up over the affected area, they will collect the information, and then they send it to this charter. And then the project manager’s job is to make sure that they are all in the right place.” Sivanpillai said
“And then there are people who process them so that they can highlight the affected areas. And we can just get the data to them quickly.”
The work is voluntary and done by people all across the globe. These volunteers donate their spare time to try and help out when and wherever they can.
“I really want to give back to the society, whether in the US or anywhere around the world,” Sivanpialli said.
“I think I’m where I am now because so many people give something, most of them my teachers. I am not from the US, so this country gave me an opportunity to come. So, once you have reached a certain point in your career, now it’s time to turn back and either give it to the students or to the community or the professional society.”
Sivanpillai has been at the university for 20 years now and, along the way, has had the opportunity to work with many different professors. One of which is Gregory Brown, who has helped Sivanpillai with his work over the years.
“He’s a valuable asset to UW, and because, you know, this is really service that he does provide for the country and, in this case, a foreign country,” Brown said.
Hurricane Fiona is the third disaster relief effort that Sivanpillai has been the project manager for.
“I did my initial training in 2008. The first project I managed was in 2011. The other one was in 2018. For the California wildfires, the first was the floods that started in Illinois, Missouri and then went to Louisiana. “
When he is not the project manager, Sivanpialli stills tries to help out with natural disasters by making maps and answering questions for people worldwide, on top of his teaching duties here at the University of Wyoming.
