Danielle Rappaport, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geographical Sciences, has been selected as an awardee of the prestigious Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship. The Fellowship is a national competition administered by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 

The award will provide three years of funding in support of Danielle's Ph.D. research. The goal of her work is to provide a novel assessment of the impacts of Amazon forest degradation on carbon stocks, habitat, and avian biodiversity by pioneering an approach that uses acoustic and lidar remote sensing to bridge ground-based and satellite observations. Danielle is also building upon recent advances in acoustic signal processing and Bayesian occupancy modeling techniques to map biodiversity patterns across landscape scales. Together, these study components pave the way for more integrated research applications of remote sensing technology. Through her research, Danielle seeks to inform policy and management strategies that may dually promote the conservation of carbon stocks and biodiversity across dynamic frontier landscapes. Danielle is being co-advised by Dr. Ralph Dubayah of the University of Maryland, and Dr. Douglas Morton of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Ford Foundation awards are granted to individuals who have demonstrated superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.