People

Dr. Temuulen "Teki" Sankey, Professor

Dr. Sankey's research focuses on geospatial data analysis and applications in coupled human-environment systems. She uses satellite-borne multispectral data and airborne hyperspectral and 3-dimensional point cloud data in geospatial and ecological applications. The ecosystems she has studied include: ponderosa pine forests in the southwestern USA, grassland-forest ecotones, aspen communities and pinyon-juniper woodlands of the inter-mountain USA, sagebrush steppe in the northern Great Basin and Columbia Plateau, USA, and grassland steppe and Siberian larch forests of northern Mongolia. At a global scale, Dr. Sankey’s current research focuses on cropland distribution and changes over time as they relate to global food security concerns. At a regional scale, she examines land management and climate change effects on southwestern desert plant communities as well as forested ecosystems. In many local-scale studies, Dr. Sankey is excited to use her newly-acquired UAV instrumentation to evaluate the effects of wildfires and forest restoration treatments on hydrology, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, snow accumulation, and soil erosion.

Specialties

Education

Department Webpage: School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber systems

Department Webpage: School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sustainability

Contact: Temuulen.Sankey@nau.edu  | Resume: PDF

Julia Tatum, PhD Student

Jonathan Tenny, PhD Student

Rayni Lewis, PhD student

Rayni Lewis is pursuing a PhD degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences. She is currently working with the Arizona Tri-University Recharge (ATUR) Project to better observe, manage, and protect Arizona’s water resources. Her research focuses on using remote sensing techniques to measure spatial and temporal variability in hydrogeologic properties across northern Arizona. Rayni received a B.S. in Geology with a minor in Mathematics from Western Colorado University in Gunnison, Colorado and has a background in geomorphology, hydrogeology, and geographic information systems. Rayni is passionate about water resources in arid/semi-arid climates and hopes to use her research to protect and manage fluvial systems in the American southwest.


Jalyn Gearries, PhD Student

Joshua Caster, PhD Student

Joshua Caster is pursuing a PhD degree in Earth and Environmental Sciences, while also working as a scientist for the US Geological Survey. Joshua Caster is physical scientist with research in earth surface processes, soil geomorphology, and geoarchaeology. His current project is looking at ways to combine spectral imagery and repeat topography to examine bio-geomorphic interactions. This research centers around defining novel approaches to quantify biological soil crust establishment and sedimentary environment stabilization. Joshua also works with various lidar datasets in complex terrain. 

Contact: jc3574@nau.edu

Blase LaSala, PhD Student

My dissertation goal is to better understand how water travels from snowpack on a high plateau to springs in the Grand Canyon. I'll be developing a digital twin of the North Rim of the canyon by combining aerial lidar and lidar scans from remote cave systems with hydrology and geology data. We'll be using NAU's supercomputing cluster, Monsoon, and Unreal Engine to process and visualize the data in an interactive format. 

This research will enable local counties, Federal agencies and multiple Native American nations in Northern Arizona better understand their groundwater and its sensitivity to contamination and climate change.

Contact: bl778@nau.edu

Lauren Tango, MS Student 

Lauren Tango is a Masters student pursuing a degree in Environmental Science and Policy, with a background in Environmental Studies and Geographic Information Science.  Her current research is focused on using Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), or lidar, to estimate geomorphic changes on the Upper Verde River. She will combine and analyze data she has collected using a TLS unit and historical US Forest Service monitoring data. She is passionate about natural resources and is hoping to use her skills in remote sensing, data analysis, and geomorphology to help answer questions about environmental resources facing land managers and the scientific community.

Contact: lt637@nau.edu

Ryan Lima, Former PhD Student                                                        

In collaboration with the Grand Canyon Research and Monitoring Center at the USGS, Ryan is working to improve techniques to quantify volume changes in Grand Canyon sand bars following high flow experiments. Results will inform adaptive management of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park. Ryan is utilizing 20+ years of photographs taken from remote cameras located within Grand Canyon National Park. His goal is to develop a program that can perform unsupervised classification of sandbars and provide accurate volume estimates of sandbars. Ryan has spent the past two years in Flagstaff earning a M.S. in Environmental Science and Policy, and is looking forward to several more years at NAU.

Contact: rl587@nau.edu

Adam Belmonte, Former PhD Student

Adam joined the Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics Lab as a graduate student in the formed School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems. He worked to expand the abilities of high resolution UAV data collection and how to best incorporate this data into current remote sensing methodologies. More specifically, he worked on the ecohydrological applications of UAVs in the calculation of evapotranspiration and soil moisture dry down rates over semi-arid forest ecosystems. Since earning his PhD, Adam has secured a remote sensing and geospatial analyst position in the private sector. 

Contact: ajb474@nau.edu

Jonathon Donager, Former PhD Student

Jonathon graduated in 2018 and became a post-doctoral research associate in the School of Forestry at NAU. Jonathon has a varied background, going from geology to linguistics in his undergrad, then finding his way to geography, remote sensing, and geospatial analysis in graduate school. The overall theme of his research has been the use of geospatial data and tools for resource management and spatial ecology. The project he worked on in Flagstaff focused on the use of ground- and UAV-based sensors for understanding the complex interactions of ponderosa pine forest restoration with snowpack. Jonathon is particularly interested in the fusion of remotely sensed satellite data with high resolution, UAV and terrestrially based 3-dimensional snow estimates using lidar and photogrammetric techniques.

Contact: jjd267@nau.edu

Nathaniel Bransky, Former MS Student

Nathaniel joined us as an undergraduate research assistant and recently finished his MS degree in our lab. He now works in a collaborative NAU-USGS research program as a remote sensing data analyst. His graduate research evaluated the use of various satellite imagery products for studying Tamarix in Grand Canyon, in collaboration with scientists at the USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center. Specifically, he used publicly available satellite products, such as Landsat, to quantify defoliation events and mortality of Tamarisk by the Tamarisk beetle. Through this project Nathaniel informed the scientific community as to when these free products are effective in capturing phenological changes in complex topographic regions, and when commercial products are a better alternative.

Kaitlyn Elkind, Former MS Student

Kaitlyn graduated with her MS degree in Fall, 2017 and became a lab manager at one of ASU's research labs. Kaitlyn studies the invasive species buffelgrass in Saguaro National Park located in Tucson, Arizona. Using satellite (Landsat & WorldView) imagery and UAVs, she is working to improve the detection and monitoring of this species in the park to help managers identify control treatment strategies. Specifically she is interested in seeing how effective the restoration treatments are in battling the fight against buffelgrass.

Contact: ke347@nau.edu

Patrick Shin, Former MS Student

Patrick graduated from our lab in Spring, 2018 and became a research associate with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Patrick studies the application of UAV and satellite imagery in forest management. Specifically, he is interested in using 3D point cloud data from UAVs and structure-from-motion, in conjunction with high-resolution satellite imagery, to measure forest structure. This data can then be used to aid in restoration treatments and wildland fire management. By using remote sensing, Patrick would like to provide forest land managers with accurate, comprehensive, and timely information to conduct precise planning and management of their resources. 

From his MS thesis, Patrick published a peer-reviewed manuscript in the journal Remote Sensing and it can be accessed here. 

Contact: pcs34@nau.edu

Daniel Solazzo, Former MS Student

Dan graduated with a MS degree from our lab in Fall, 2017 and moved to the east coast to pursue his career. In collaboration with USGS scientists, Dan studies rangeland degradation and soil erosion. Using satellite and UAV data time-series, Dan is interested in estimating sand dune area, volume, and erosion rates at annual to decadal scales. Dan also measures these rates at finer spatial and temporal scales using UAV-based 3-dimensional point cloud data. Specifically, Dan is interested in linking the land degradation processes to environmental management policies and land use changes. 

From his MS thesis, Dan published a peer-reviewed manuscript in the journal Geomorphology and it can be accessed here. 

Contact: djs364@nau.edu

Richard Massey, Former PhD Student

Richard Massey graduated with a PhD from our lab in Fall, 2017 and became a post-doctoral research associate in another lab at NAU. As a part of a NASA-funded 5-year project GFSAD30 (Croplands.org), Richard studied global croplands in our lab. Richard is interested in developing novel pixel-, object-, and temporal feature-based approaches to classify croplands at a continental scale using MODIS and Landsat time-series data. Proficient in multiple programming languages, he is particularly interested in fusion of remote sensing data from multiple platforms at a continental scale. With backgrounds in Civil Engineering and Geodesy, his varied skill set includes computing cluster-based parallel programming, cloud computing using Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud Platform to optimize processing and classification of dense continental remote sensing datasets, and proficiency in the use of Geodesic methods for mapping and ground surveys. Richard's research focuses on improving our ability to accurately detect and monitor natural and man-made land resources for policy development towards efficient resource management.

From his dissertation in our lab, Richard has published 2 manuscripts in the highest-ranking disciplinary journal Remote Sensing of Environment and they can be accessed here and here. 

Contact: rm885@nau.edu