Employment and Research

Environmental Spatial Data Analyst

NASA Earth Sciences DEVELOP, Texas Tech University

Jun 25 - current

• Supported our partner organization, Oaks and Prairies Joint Ventures, in grassland restoration for native bird conservation.

• Analyzed and managed data from 14 Earth Observation and other spatial data products in Google Earth Engine and ArcGIS Pro.

• Created a random forest model to assess landscape-scale vegetation composition, structure, and response to conservation activities over 60 million acres of southwest US grasslands.

• Assessed site-level grassland vegetation community responses to 2 restoration interventions: prescribed burning and shrub management.

• Produced 7 distinct deliverables including science communication materials, tutorials, and time series maps.

• Building relationships with our partner organization and participating landowners to promote nature-based conservation and restoration strategies.

Junior Specialist - GIS

University of California, Santa Cruz, Holl Restoration Ecology Lab

Sep 24 - current

• Investigated 130 global tree-planting organizations and their implementation of best practices for reforestation and forest restoration.

• Administered and processed 65 digital surveys to international tree-planting organizations.

• Aggregated and managed 100,000+ polygon restoration sites from 15 data sources of varying quality.

• Led spatial data collection and management from 20 environmental, climatic, and social spatial data sources. 

• Developed ecologically appropriate spatial data collection methods for restoration sites distributed across 7 distinct regions.

• Supported the leadership team in project design, methods development, data collection and management, and writing for 2 expected publications.

Undergraduate Senior Thesis Advisee

May 23 - May 24

• Independently researched 40 global agroforestry-implementing organizations and the possible tradeoffs between carbon credit-driven priorities and organizational intentions to secure community benefits.

• Wrote a proposal for and received the UCSC Earth Futures Institute Frontiers Fellowship Research Grant.

• Interviewed 11 subject organizations and reviewed 40 public websites.

• Conducted literature review, developed methods, collected and analyzed diverse data, produced and presented a research poster, and wrote a senior thesis paper.

• Advised by Drs. Karen D. Holl and Madeleiene Fairbairn.

Undergraduate Researcher

Jan 23 - May 23

• Assisted in the investigation of 99 global tree-planting intermediary organizations and their adherence to best practices for reforestation.

• Conducted 45 website reviews and assisted in data management.

• Co-authored the resulting paper published in Conservation Letters.