A few years ago, Michael Berryann completed an associate degree. In a few more years, he plans to complete a doctorate. And all that education has come after an earlier career.
Berryann, who will graduate in December with a master’s degree in earth, environmental and geospatial sciences, dabbled in higher education after high school.
“I went to UNC – Greensboro to be a math teacher but that didn’t stick,” Barryann said. “Then NC State University but it had too many people. Then to Montgomery Community College to be a forest ranger. I had no intention of going higher than a bachelor’s degree before I got to Central.”
Berryann grew up in Texas, son of a father in the U.S. Army, though he has now lived in North Carolina for 20 years. He entered the healthcare field as a security guard and over the next 12 years worked his way up to program administrator, supervising transportation of patients within and between medical facilities.
He finished an associate degree in science at Alamance Community College in 2018. In January 2022, he left the healthcare field and developed a sideline business doing home technology repairs and installation. He then enrolled at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) as an undergraduate to study geospatial information systems (GIS).
“Mostly I make maps from data,” Berryann said. “I take real world data and create maps to look at trends and patterns.”
For example, he interned at a NASA facility in Huntsville, Alabama, where he processed satellite imagery to look for crop damage from hail and wind.
Currently he is using LiDAR (3D laser mapping) to map elevation changes south of Asheville for landslide susceptibility.
Berryann completed his bachelor’s degree in December 2023 and in January 2024 returned to NCCU to start a master’s degree. Married and with a six-year-old daughter, he said “the biggest challenge was balancing work, family and school.”
For his master’s thesis, he is researching how to use drones and artificial intelligence as a way to respond to natural disasters.
“I collect ariel imagery and run it through an AI model that will look for vehicles in distress – in water or covered in mud – and landslide detection,” he said.
Berryann has his next few years mapped out. After graduating in December, he will attend NC A&T State University to earn a doctorate in applied technologies and sciences.
Next, he plans to start a geospatial company that specializes in disaster response.
“After that, I’ll get a juris doctorate in environmental law,” Berryann said. “I want to hold companies accountable for stuff that impacts the environment.”
He is not, however, leaving NCCU entirely. Starting in January, he’ll take over teaching drone classes; teaching students how to college data with drones and process it and preparing them to obtain an FAA drone license.
Berryann credits NCCU for clarifying his future.
“After going to Central, I figured out what I wanted to do. I was more determined to finish.”
