My research interests include the exploration of geospatial data to describe and characterize biophysical phenomena and the interactions with humans.  My focus is on wildfires, remote sensing, and the relationships with society and a changing climate. 

I am currently funded on a National Institute of Health (NIH) project examining the impacts of wildfire smoke on maternal, neonatal, and infant health across the United States for the last 20 years.  In my role, I serve as the wildfire and geospatial data expert analyzing the intersections of smoke and populations.  Additionally, I am working with colleagues in the School of Public Health, the Renal Research Institute, and Fresenius Medical Care to study wildfire smoke exposure impacts on end-stage kidney disease patients in the United States.  We are funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) under the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) until 2029.  This was highlighted in Maryland Today recently.

I am a member of NASA's FireSense Implementation Team tasked with capacity building with U.S. wildland fire management stakeholders to deliver NASA's science and technology to support operational agencies.  Four use-cases will be focused on:  pre-fire, active fire, post-fire, and air quality. 

As part of the XPRIZE-Wildfire challenge team here at UMD, I am leading the detector design team tasked with finding an incipient wildfire in a 1000 sq. km. area.  Our team, Crossfire, advanced to the semi-finals in July, 2024.

I am a VIIRS active fire product science team member and served as the Principle Investigator for NOAA's Proving Ground and Risk Reduction (PGRR) project focused on the VIIRS AF products for over 10 years.  The goal of this project was to couple capacity building with the wildland fire research and operations communities while simultaneously conducting product evaluation.