ABOUT MEI am fascinated by nature and the complex ways that we interact with it. Growing up in a small town situated between the Catskill Mountains and Hudson River in Upstate New York, I spent my free time in the woods, unintentionally (but fortuitously!) developing a lifelong love and appreciation for geography and forest ecology. I remember hiking along trails, wondering, "why do hemlocks grow here, and maples grow there?" But it wasn't just the trees; I also wondered "who built this trail, and why here?" To this day, I still get all of my research ideas while hiking in the woods (the good ones, anyway).
To view my CV, click here. |
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RESEARCHI am a remote sensing and geospatial data scientist. My research focuses on the various overlaps between wildland fire, forest and woodland ecology, and human-environment interactions. A primary example of where these application areas overlap is in the realm of wildland firefighter safety. I've devoted a significant portion of my research life on developing tools and methods for improving wildland firefighter safety, where I use lidar remote sensing to map landscape conditions (vegetation structure, terrain slope and roughness), and study how they affect pedestrian travel rates through a combination of data mining and experimentation to facilitate the mapping of maximally-efficient firefighter escape routes.
For more on my research, click here. |
TEACHINGSome of my fondest experiences as a scientist have come not in the lab or in the field, but in the classroom. Working with, training, and getting to know students at all levels and from all backgrounds is truly one of the great perks of the academic life. I spent two and a half years as a teaching-focused, tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO. It was there that I was able to hone my teaching craft and develop a solid pedagogical foundation upon which all of my courses are built. I have taught a wide range of introductory and advanced classes in GIS, remote sensing, Python programming, and pyrogeography.
For more on my teaching, click here. |
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PROFESSIONALI am currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Utah. In this role, I am working on a variety of research with Dr. Phil Dennison and graduate students in the URSA Lab. Prior to my current appointment, I was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Fort Lewis College. I also worked for two years as a Remote Sensing Analyst for a US Forest Service contractor, RedCastle Resources, focused on vegetation type and structure mapping throughout the Intermountain West.
For more on my professional experience, click here. |
