About

Assistant Research Scientist specializing in physics-informed AI architectures for Earth observation systems. Delivered operational frameworks reducing permafrost carbon feedback uncertainty by 39% and achieving 96.4% detection accuracy across 345,000+ validation events by designing distributed multi-GPU training infrastructure processing 54+ million observations. Managed circumarctic analyses at 30m-1km resolution supporting strategic mission planning for NASA satellite programs. Collaborative leader bridging physical sciences and systems engineering to advance quantitative climate prediction capabilities informing policy-critical carbon budget assessments.

Work

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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Assistant Research Scientist

Greenbelt, Maryland, US

Summary

Leads advanced research in AI-driven Earth observation and climate modeling, developing and deploying high-performance computing solutions for critical environmental assessments.

Highlights

Architected and deployed AI/ML frameworks across NASA's 32-GPU distributed computing infrastructure, accelerating global methane emission reconciliation by 40% and delivering operational 1km-resolution greenhouse gas flux estimation by integrating 7 diverse satellite datasets.

Developed GeoCryoAI physics-informed transfer learning framework, reducing permafrost carbon feedback prediction uncertainty by 39% (RMSE from 1.997cm to 1.007cm) and achieving 96.4% detection accuracy across billions of observations.

Quantified permafrost zero-curtain phenomena, revealing its control over up to 40% of the remaining carbon budget for the 1.5°C warming limit by processing 54+ million observations on a 32-GPU distributed infrastructure.

Designed a scalable data engineering framework for NASA's NISAR satellite mission, establishing operational circumarctic monitoring with 30m resolution and enabling 3-6 month forecasts from multi-billion-row geospatial databases.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory | California Institute of Technology
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NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow

Pasadena, California, US

Summary

Conducted advanced research on Arctic methane emissions and permafrost dynamics, developing novel algorithms and accelerating satellite mission readiness.

Highlights

Developed a novel L-band SAR algorithm for lake ebullition quantification, enabling 7-order-of-magnitude spatial scaling (10m to 10,000km) of Arctic methane emissions with successful cross-platform validation across Alaska.

Accelerated operational readiness for 5 future NASA/ESA methane monitoring missions (NISAR, SBG, CHIME, MERLIN, CO2-M) by synthesizing airborne campaign data and delivering landscape-scale flux estimation methodologies.

Managed international multi-agency Arctic monitoring coordination as a NASA-ESA Arctic Methane Permafrost Challenge Leadership Team member, harmonizing heterogeneous observational platforms for circumpolar permafrost analysis.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
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SIBBORK-TTE Modeler | Permafrost Calibration/Validation Scientist

Greenbelt, Maryland, US

Summary

Improved permafrost thaw prediction and Arctic vegetation response modeling, contributing to critical climate change research.

Highlights

Improved permafrost thaw prediction fidelity by 25% (RMSE reduction to 0.316±0.106m) against field observations across four Alaska subdomains through an enhanced spatially-explicit individual-based model.

Enabled first sub-hectare resolution projections of Arctic vegetation response across a 1.5 million km² domain by deploying an integrated forest-tundra model, quantifying nonlinear permafrost-vegetation feedbacks under future warming conditions.

Education

George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America

Ph.D.

Earth Systems and Geoinformation Sciences

Courses

Dissertation: Investigating High-Latitude Permafrost Carbon Dynamics with Artificial Intelligence and Earth System Data Assimilation

Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

M.Sc.

Environmental Sciences and Policy

Courses

Thesis: Quantifying Wildfire Dynamics in Galicia with Remote Sensing, Modeling, and Artificial Intelligence

University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America

B.Sc.

Biology

Awards

AGU 2025 Session Convener

Awarded By

American Geophysical Union (AGU)

Convened the AGU 2025 session on 'The Resilience and Vulnerability of Arctic and Boreal Ecosystems to Climate Change I-VI'.

Research Recognition: Featured in NASA HQ/JPL Earth Science Division Highlights

Awarded By

NASA HQ/JPL, California Institute of Technology, NSF NEON Science

Recognized for significant research contributions and impact, highlighted across multiple prestigious scientific platforms in 2024/2025.

NASA-ESA RECAPP3 Reconciliation Challenge Lead

Awarded By

NASA-ESA

Led the NASA-ESA RECAPP3 Reconciliation Challenge and contributed to the NASA-ESA Arctic Methane Permafrost Challenge (AMPAC) Leadership Team.

AMPAC Summer School Instructor

Awarded By

AMPAC

Served as an instructor for the AMPAC Summer School, teaching in situ harmonization, numerical modeling, and AI for Arctic Research in Svalbard.

NASA ROSES Panelist

Awarded By

NASA ROSES

Served as a panelist for NASA ROSES (FINESST, CMS) proposal reviews in 2024 and 2025.

George Mason University Dean's Award for Research Excellence

Awarded By

George Mason University

Recognized for outstanding research contributions and academic distinction.

USPA Education Award

Awarded By

USPA

Received for exceptional achievements in education and academic pursuits.

Publications

Bridging Bottom-Up and Top-Down Greenhouse Gas Estimates Through Multi-Modal Earth Observation Integration

Published by

Nature Climate Change

Summary

This publication focuses on integrating multi-modal Earth observation data to reconcile bottom-up and top-down greenhouse gas estimates, currently in preparation.

Resolving Circumarctic Zero-Curtain Phenomena with AI-Integrated Earth Observations

Published by

Nature Machine Intelligence

Summary

This work explores the resolution of circumarctic zero-curtain phenomena through AI-integrated Earth observations, currently under review.

GeoCryoAI Permafrost, Thaw Depth and Carbon Flux in Alaska, 1963-2022

Published by

ORNL DAAC

Summary

A dataset and analysis of permafrost, thaw depth, and carbon flux in Alaska from 1963 to 2022, utilizing GeoCryoAI.

Decoding the Spatiotemporal Complexities of the Permafrost Carbon Feedback with Multimodal Ensemble Learning

Published by

JGR: Machine Learning and Computation

Summary

Investigates the spatiotemporal complexities of permafrost carbon feedback using multimodal ensemble learning techniques.

Advancing AMPAC With Future Satellite Missions

Published by

IEEE JSTARS

Summary

Discusses advancements in the Arctic Methane Permafrost Challenge (AMPAC) using future satellite missions.

Investigating permafrost carbon dynamics in Alaska with artificial intelligence

Published by

Environmental Research Letters

Summary

Research focused on understanding permafrost carbon dynamics in Alaska through the application of artificial intelligence.

Skills

AI/ML & High-Performance Computing

PyTorch, TensorFlow, Keras, Physics-Informed Neural Networks, Continuous Thought Machines, Diffusion Transformers, Transfer Learning, 32-GPU Distributed Training, NASA NCCS Discover/ADAPT, NCAR Cheyenne/Derecho, AWS Earthdata Cloud.

Earth Observation Systems

SAR Polarimetry (UAVSAR, NISAR, Sentinel-1), L-band Radiometry (SMAP), Thermal Infrared (Landsat 8/9), Hyperspectral (AVIRIS-NG), Lidar (GEDI, ICESat-2), Interferometric Processing, Multimodal Harmonization, Synthetic Aperture Radar, Thermal Remote Sensing, Hyperspectral Remote Sensing, Optical Remote Sensing.

Process Modeling & Data Assimilation

Earth System Models (ESM), Carbon Cycle Modeling, Permafrost Physics, CMIP6 Climate Scenarios, Model Benchmarking, Earth System Modeling, Carbon Cycle Dynamics, Subsurface Mechanics.

Data Engineering & Scientific Computing

Parquet/Zarr/NetCDF, DuckDB Analytics, Python, C, JavaScript, PostGIS, MongoDB, Neo4J, Git, CI/CD, Multimodal Data Harmonization, Distributed Supercomputing, Geospatial Analytics at Scale.