Landscape Biogeochemistry, Imaging Spectroscopy & Ecosystem Ecology
I currently have two open NASA Postdoctoral Program positions, with applications due November 1, 2026. Details and application links.
Overview
I am an Earth System scientist researching the interconnections among ecosystems, critical zone processes, and the evolution of landscapes.
My work utilizes spaceborne and airborne platforms that integrate imaging spectroscopy and lidar sensors, extensive field sampling campaigns, and laboratory analyses. I combine these techniques in order to uncover spatial distributions of ecosystem characteristics and link these patterns to underlying processes. In order to extrapolate ecosystem and biogeochemical properties from remote sensing data, I design and carry out field campaigns in close coordination with overflights, collecting samples from hundreds of locations in order to develop the statistical models necessary for extrapolation.
At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory my work spans mission science, airborne science campaigns, and applications. The science side is concerned with what future instruments need to measure and how well, with developing and evaluating approaches for retrieving vegetation properties from spectra, and with designing the campaigns that test those questions directly. I served as VSWIR Terrestrial Vegetation Lead for the Surface Biology and Geology mission and am terrestrial lead for the SBG High Frequency Timeseries campaign.
I also lead mission applications for EMIT and EAGLE-VSWIR, connecting the measurements that NASA missions collect with the scientists, agencies, and communities that can use them. This has included mineral and methane detection with EMIT aboard the International Space Station, crop disease surveys over agricultural regions in New York, acid mine drainage mapping in support of remediation, and rapid response collections following the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
A substantial portion of my work involves building the shared databases, tutorials, and software that make imaging spectroscopy accessible to the broader research community. I lead development of the VSWIR-PLANTS database, contribute to VITALS, organize the EMIT data tutorial series, and publish the field and airborne data from the campaigns I lead.
Prior to joining JPL I was a research associate at UT Austin, an NSF Earth Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and a graduate researcher in Greg Asner's group at the Carnegie Institution, supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. I received my PhD in Earth System Science from Stanford University and my undergraduate degrees in Environmental Economics and Policy and in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Areas of work
I work on mission science and applications for the EMIT and EAGLE-VSWIR missions, serving as Mission Applications Lead for both and as EMIT DART Integrator. I previously served as VSWIR Terrestrial Vegetation Lead for the Surface Biology and Geology mission.
I design and lead field campaigns in coordination with airborne collections, including SHIFT in Santa Barbara County, CHESS at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, AVIRIS4Acres-NY over Cornell and USDA-ARS research farms, and the first taskable NEON AOP survey. I am Deputy Lead of the Science Definition Team for PANGEA, a proposed NASA Terrestrial Ecology campaign in the tropics.
I lead development of the VSWIR-PLANTS plant trait database, contribute to VITALS for combined EMIT and ECOSTRESS analysis, organize the EMIT data tutorial series, and publish campaign data promptly to encourage reuse across a broad community. More
I study how erosion, landscape evolution, and substrate influence the distribution of nutrients in soils, and how these patterns are reflected in the characteristics of plant canopies, from Amazonian terra firme forests to Rocky Mountain headwater catchments.
I work with agencies, resource managers, and international partners on applications of imaging spectroscopy, including critical mineral identification and mine remediation, greenhouse gas monitoring, plastic pollution, agricultural disease detection, and wildfire response.
I mentor postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates through NASA, JPL, and Caltech programs. Open positions
Current roles
A full record of grants, awards, service, teaching, and mentorship is available in my CV.
News
I am advising two open NASA Postdoctoral Program opportunities at JPL, both with applications due November 1, 2026. One focuses on terrestrial ecology, wildfire fuel monitoring, and agricultural applications, and the other on tropical ecosystem and biogeochemical research. More detail is here, and I would encourage anyone considering applying to get in touch with me first.
NASA announced the EAGLE program in 2026, building on the legacy of the HyspIRI and Surface Biology and Geology initiatives. EAGLE-VSWIR is the visible to shortwave infrared mission within the program and is targeted for launch in 2028. I am serving as Mission Applications Lead. I have also joined UCLA's JIFRESSE as a Visiting Associate Project Scientist.
NASA has asked the PANGEA team to develop a Concise Experiment Plan, an important step toward a NASA Terrestrial Ecology field and airborne campaign in the tropics. I am serving as Deputy Lead of the Science Definition Team, which will work with the PANGEA Steering Committee through 2026 and 2027 to refine the scope and assess feasibility, with an initial focus on Central Africa and a campaign targeted for late 2028 or early 2029. I co-led the Feasibility Working Group during the 2024 scoping study, which engaged more than 800 people across 42 countries and produced the PANGEA white paper.
Our review of where remote spectral imaging of the Earth's surface is headed is now out in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment. Read the review.
This campaign, co-led with Katie Gold of Cornell AgriTech through the NASA Acres consortium, collected high resolution hyperspectral imagery over Cornell and USDA-ARS research farms and commercial grape, apple, and onion production in the Finger Lakes region of New York. The work is aimed at early detection of crop disease and understanding how disease affects grapevine physiology. I supported the collection of crop trait data for the VSWIR-PLANTS database. Read the writeup from the Gold Lab.
With directed funding from NASA Terrestrial Ecology, I am leading development of VSWIR-PLANTS, an open database of plant traits and spectra collected across campaigns that supports foliar trait algorithm development for EAGLE-VSWIR. The effort began as SBG-PLANTS and was first presented at AGU in 2024.
CHESS brought a new airborne and field campaign to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Gothic, Colorado, seven years after the first taskable NEON AOP survey of the same watersheds. I served on the planning committee and led the JPL team supporting vegetation trait collection, ISOFIT processing, and model development to unify the 2018 and 2025 datasets.
Our overview of the SBG High Frequency Timeseries campaign is now out in Ecosphere, along with a special collection of companion papers on spectral diversity, phenology, and plant traits. The campaign paired fourteen weeks of repeat AVIRIS-NG flights with weekly field sampling in Santa Barbara County. Read the paper.
Our paper on the worldwide detection of plastics using the EMIT imaging spectrometer is out in Geophysical Research Letters. This work also contributed to a United Nations Office for Sustainable Development report on tackling plastic pollution. The paper is here.
With support from NASA Earth Action and the Earth System Science Pathfinder program, we are developing critical mineral products and acid mine drainage applications using EMIT data. I presented this work to the mining sector at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation capacity building workshop in Lima, Peru.
I received JPL's Charles Elachi Award for Outstanding Early-Career Achievement, along with NASA Group Achievement Awards for the EMIT science team and the EMIT instrument operations system.