I am an ecologist interested in understanding the causes and consequences of biodiversity change at scales ranging from individual organisms to the entire biosphere. I develop data-model synthesis frameworks that integrate remote sensing (e.g., LiDAR, hyperspectral imaging), field sampling, and ecological monitoring networks with Bayesian hierarchical models and Earth System models. I predict how remotely sensed habitats and climate change interact to drive biodiversity shifts, while also quantifying the feedbacks of biodiversity changes on carbon and water exchanges between land and atmosphere. Additionally, I study global forest regeneration potential and its critical role in shaping food web dynamics.

Prior to joining Duke University, I served as a tenure-track assistant professor at the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at the Pennsylvania State University. I conducted postdoctral research with Dr. Jim Clark and Dr. Jennifer Swenson at the Nicholas School of the Environment. For my doctoral research, I worked with Drs. Conghe Song, Jim Clark, Erika Wise, Diego Riveros-Iregui, and Allen Hurlbert to understand how vegetation phenology is influenced by climate change, extreme weather events, and urbanization.

Dr. Zhuohong Li is a postdoctoral researcher specializing in deep learning (GeoAI) and Earth observation (AI4EO). His work has received multiple international recognitions, including a CVPR 2024 Highlights selection and first place in the CVPR OpenEarthMap Challenge. He also led the development of SinoLC-1, the first national land-cover map of China at 1-meter resolution. The associated work was recognized as an ESI Highly Cited Paper, and the dataset was named the No. 1 Most Valuable Dataset in the 2023 China Top 10 Remote Sensing Events. Dr. Li received his B.Eng. in Communication Engineering and Ph.D. in Remote Sensing from the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS) at Wuhan University. At Duke, he is advancing the development and application of GeoAI methods for ecological research, with a particular focus on urban and forest environments in the United States. His current projects include urban greenspace mapping, tree species classification, and tree mortality mapping. He also led the development of SinoBF-1, a recent study that has been recognized as an ESI Highly Cited Paper.

Dr. Yu Shen is a postdoctoral researcher with expertise in quantifying ecosystem dynamics across forest and cropland systems using multi-source remote sensing and time-series analysis. His research integrates observations from a wide range of satellite and airborne sensors, including Sentinel-2, Landsat, VIIRS, MODIS, GOES, and PlanetScope, to characterize land surface processes across multiple spatial and temporal scales. He earned his Ph.D. at South Dakota State University, where he also completed one year of postdoctoral research. At Duke, Yu studies interactions between vegetation and environmental stressors, including fire and other disturbances, with a particular focus on dryland and forest ecosystems experiencing compounded climate extremes. He is also developing vegetation dynamics products across African Parks to investigate how fire and grazing interact to shape savanna ecosystems.

Hanshi is a Ph.D. candidate in the University Program in Ecology (UPE) at Duke University. She began her doctoral studies in ecology at Penn State before moving to Duke. Her dissertation focuses on how biophysical controls and anthropogenic drivers shape vegetation dynamics across natural and human-dominated landscapes. Her first two dissertation chapters, which examined the roles of canopy structure and nutrients in shaping vegetation phenology in North American forests, have been published in Global Change Biology and Nature Communications, respectively. In her remaining chapters, she examines the ecological impacts of restoration practices in sub-Saharan Africa, with an emphasis on how these interventions influence woody cover and species composition. Before beginning her Ph.D., she worked at the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, from 2021 to 2023, where her research focused on industrial ecology.

Tracy (Siyu) Che is a Master of Environmental Management student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. She is interested in urban ecology and biodiversity conservation, particularly in how geospatial analysis, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence can help us understand ecological responses to environmental change. She is part of the team studying tree mortality using remote sensing and AI. She earned her B.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Southern California, with a minor in Artificial Intelligence Applications. Her previous work at the Resource Renewal Institute explored habitat connectivity and conservation priorities in support of the 30x30 California initiative. She is interested in connecting ecological research with practical conservation and restoration efforts.

Marley is a Master of Environmental Management student at Duke University. She earned a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Central Florida, where her coursework focused on plant ecology and land conservation. Marley’s interests lie at the intersection of plant ecology, conservation, and human-environment interactions, with a focus on understanding how climate change and human activity shape plant communities and terrestrial ecosystems. She is part of the team delineating tree crowns in Malawi, which supports her research on restoration outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nick is a joint Master of Environmental Management and Master of Forestry student at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Nick is interested in modeling and implementing natural carbon capture using remote sensing and hands-on land management. Before Duke, he attended Bowdoin College as an undergraduate and worked as a GIS analyst and environmental consultant, modeling coastal shoreline change and implementing software for large-scale water utility replacement projects.

Tate Commission is an undergraduate researcher at Duke University (Class of 2029). Tate majors in mechanical engineering and has extensive experience applying R for statistical analysis and visualization in urban greenspace and forestry applications. He is leading the lab’s forest regeneration project, funded by NASA, to develop a decision-making visualization toolkit for our end user, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR). He has also visualized data to highlight the various benefits of urban trees across US regions and proposed additional predictors for the Tree Equity Score in a report for the CEO of American Forests.

Ivy Geng is a climate scholar and undergraduate researcher at Duke University (Class of 2028). Ivy is double majoring in Earth and Climate Sciences and Public Policy. She is leading a team to characterize the fragmentation of urban greenspace and its effects on ecosystem services in cities, such as biodiversity support and cooling, with the ultimate goal of informing policymaking. She has also led a study evaluating how emerging AI tools, such as AlphaEarth Foundations embeddings, contribute to global species richness mapping. As a high school student, she worked at Tsinghua University, where she contributed to projects on microplastic runoff and soil remediation following heavy metal contamination. During that time, she independently designed and conducted environmental experiments, resulting in multiple first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Michael (Qibo) Wang is an undergraduate researcher at Duke University (Class of 2029). Michael majors in statistical science and is interested in ecological restoration in global dryland ecosystems. He has made critical contributions to the lab’s project on woody cover change in Africa. He also helped maintain the website for the lab’s project “Partnership for Rewilding: Integrated Sensing & Monitoring” (PRISM).