About Me
I’m a Ph.D. Candidate in the Environmental Systems Graduate Group at the University of California, Merced. I conduct research in the Earth Observation and Remote Sensing (EORS) Lab (PI: Dr. Erin Hestir).
My background is in environmental engineering, spatial ecology, and remote sensing.
I am interested in how landscape structure organizes biodiversity. Using remote sensing, GIS, and spatial modeling, I link hydrology and geomorphology to ecological patterns across dynamic ecosystems.
I am particularly drawn to dynamic ecosystems that occur at the terrestrial-aquatic interface, such as floodplains, river corridors, and ephemeral wetlands, where small changes in elevation or connectivity can reorganize entire communities. These systems demand tools that operate across scales, from microtopography measured by drone-based LiDAR to watershed scale classification of river networks.
More broadly, I am motivated by a central question: How can we observe ecological change at the spatial and temporal scales at which it actually occurs?