My research focuses on the nature-society interface, where environmental variability and change affects food security, nutrition outcomes, agricultural development and other aspects of society.  I use satellite remote sensing to understand environmental dynamics, and use social and economic datasets that allow for exploration of the impact of these dynamics on communities at a broad scale. 

I conduct research in four areas: using long term data records in vegetation and rainfall to understand environmental change, particularly in Africa; research to develop new methods for ensuring the use of new and existing satellite remote sensing in applications with societal benefit; use of satellite data with demographic and nutrition household surveys to measure the impact of environmental shocks on human health outcomes; and the development of models and methods that enable the quantification of the impact of environmental and international food price shocks on local food prices.

Ongoing projects include:

• Developing new methods to integrate remote sensing data into econometric, nutrition, and food security models to improve our understanding of the effect of weather and climate on society;
• Exploring the use of long term records of vegetation, rainfall, soil moisture and evaporative stress in agriculture insurance programs in Africa;
• Working with local, national and international organizations to incorporate Earth science data and models to improve hazard early warning and understand of the threats of climate change;
• Understand the value of satellite remote sensing data in decision making communities; and
• Engaging with decision makers across the agriculture value chain in tropical countries.

I recently have begun working with 6th Grain Corporation as their Chief Science Officer. 6th Grain is a highly innovative and agile digital agriculture technology company with solutions being used by leading input suppliers and other AG holding companies in both low and high-income country settings. 6th Grain provides high quality, actionable intelligence that will guide focused marketing and infrastructure investments by agricultural companies in Europe, Africa and Asia.