Frederick Ajisafe

Frederick Ajisafe is a PhD student in aeronautics and astronautics whose research aims to apply space technologies and systems engineering techniques to address challenges on Earth. As a MathWorks Fellow, he will conduct a project evaluating the benefits of satellite-based Earth observation tools in local methane monitoring, as part of policies to address climate and air quality concerns. The project, centered on the Seropédica landfill in Rio de Janeiro, employs an Environment-Vulnerability-Decision-Technology Framework (EVDT) to draw system-level connections among the natural environment, its consequences for human and socioeconomic vulnerability, the role of human decision-making, and the ability of technology to resolve gaps in a decision-maker’s knowledge of the environment. Frederick will create MATLAB-based models to create simulations and analyses guided by EVDT. Frederick’s work has the potential to offer a novel system engineering framework for holistically analyzing the benefits of sensing technologies applied to methane generation in urban landfills, as well as a valuable example of how interdisciplinary modeling packages can be used to inform real-world policymaking.