About Me

Bringing a scientific mind and entrepreneurial spirit to the business of regeneration.

Biography

I am an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland. My research is currently funded by NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), a satellite mission providing global insights into the three-dimensional structure of Earth's terrestrial ecosystems.

My work combines expertise in forest ecology, remote sensing, and nature markets to support the development of targets and strategies for ecosystem regeneration. I advance interdisciplinary applications of remote sensing data to study the socio-ecological risks, opportunities, and trade-offs between competing land use priorities. I engage in research that provides decision-support for nature-based solutions by integrating a range of emerging space-borne, air-borne, and in-situ technologies. My work, primarily focused on the tropics, has pioneered new scientific methodologies for combining optical, lidar, and acoustic data to monitor biodiversity and biomass recovery following human disturbance from fire and logging.

Prior to my current academic role, I worked with private, public, and non-profit sectors on data-driven initiatives for incentivizing investments in ecosystem resilience. As Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of the Amazon Investor Coalition, a nature finance mobilization platform funded by the UK Government, I spearheaded programs to drive investment in Amazon forest regeneration. I later served as Lead Scientist and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Nature Tech Collective, the world’s largest membership organization of nature data providers supporting high-integrity nature markets. Earlier in my career, I held positions with the National Geographic Society, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the American Forest Foundation, and worked as an independent consultant for nature tech startups.

I hold a Masters of Forestry from Yale University and a PhD in Geographical Sciences from the University of Maryland, where I received awards from NSF and NASA for my scholarship.

Early story: Inspiration

 

I was raised by diverse lands, cultures, and life forms. Each played a key role in my early story.

I developed instincts for purposeful risk-taking from my Israeli dad, who stoked an early interest in business, and for magical thinking from my Puerto Rican grandmother, who illuminated my path as scientist and poet. My mom and her sisters taught me how to appreciate and probe the mysteries of nature and to bailar salsa. 

Growing up in the Virginia woodlands, I had free rein to our mountaintop covered in biology, and spent most free hours roaming the forest as an intrepid scientist-in-the-making. My siblings were all non-human: hundreds of small parrots, dozens of horses, and other farm critters.

One day I woke up and all the forest around me was gone. Forest converted to short-term economic thinking. The rampant deforestation of Loudoun County, Virginia — which became the nation’s fastest growing county and famous cautionary tale — started me on my life path towards fostering sustainable development and smarter business growth.

 
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“I am because we are.” Ubuntu

Selected Science Talks

 

Here, we developed a more complete understanding of carbon emissions and recovery following fire and logging in the Amazon by integrating multi-sensor remote sensing data from satellites and LiDAR. Filmed as a video abstract for our corresponding publication.

 

We can’t see animals from space, so Rainforest Connection’s AI algorithms and acoustic sensors enable us to monitor animal populations and illegal activity in real-time to benchmark change over time. Filmed for Interspecies Conversations, cohosted by MIT Bits & Atoms, Google, and the Jeremy Coller Foundation.

 

By combining insights from space, aircraft, and acoustics, we are developing a more complete picture of animal ecosystems in human-altered forests. Filmed for the Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

 

Media Mentions

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Awards & Achievements

2019–2019

University of Maryland Wylie Dissertation Fellowship  

2016–2019

NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship

2016-2016

NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Award 

2016

Ford Foundation Fellowship (awarded but declined)

2014-2016

University of Maryland Dean’s Fellowship  

2014-2014

NASA-UMD Joint Global Carbon Cycle Center Fellowship 

2012-2013

Yale Fox International Research Fellowship   

2012-2012

Brazilian Studies Association Brazilian Initiation Scholarship  

2011-2011

Yale University Tropical Resource Institute Fellowship  

2011-2011

Yale University Carpenter-Sperry Research Grant  

2011-2011

Yale University Latin American and Iberian Studies Grant        

2006-2008

George Washington University Presidential Merit Scholarship