Tianjiao Pu is a 6th year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Originally from Wuxi, China, she received her BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018.  Tianjiao is currently focusing on mapping waterbodies and flooding combining CYGNSS and machine learning techniques to improve methane emissions and better understand how areas of flooding and wildfires can emerge in various landscapes under specific hydrological conditions.

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Ann Scheliga is a 5th year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Originally from Houston, Texas, Ann received her BSc in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. Ann currently focuses on surface water and groundwater interactions around human-constructed reservoirs using CYGNSS and GRACE satellite data.

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Find her on Twitter: @annscheliga

Paul Seibert is a 3rd year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Originally from Maryland, Paul received his BSc from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland in 2021. While completing his BSc, Paul spent a semester abroad at the Technical University of Denmark. Paul is currently working on understanding the effects of soil warming on vegetation water use, as well as measuring and modeling the solar-induced fluorescence signal of vegetation in response to variations in various environmental variables. 

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Find him on Google Scholar and Twitter: @paul__seibert

Anna Valcarcel is a 1st year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She attended UC Davis where she earned her BS in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering in 2021. She has had several research and extracurricular experiences working with small-format satellites and is now applying her knowledge to earth observation for environmental hydrology. Anna received an NSF GRFP Fellowship in Spring 2024 and is currently working on modeling the outflow of ungauged basins in the tropics using CYGNSS surface water maps and machine learning.

Ashley Cao is a 1st year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Originally from Corona, California, Ashley received her BSE in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2023. Ashley is currently studying the effects of dew deposition on vegetation at the ecosystem-scale using ecosys mathematical modeling.

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Katie Stephens is a 1st year PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. She holds a BSc in Biological Systems Engineering from UC Davis (2020) and an MSc in Material Sciences and Engineering from UC Merced (2023). She is currently working on using GNSS-R data from Spire to map the spatio-temporal variations of wetland extent in boreal ecosystems and the impact of these on methane emissions.

Joaquin Jamieson is a 4th year undergraduate student studying Environmental Engineering Science in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Originally from Madera, California, Joaquin is studying the effects of regreening efforts on the expansion of the Sahara Desert using solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence and rainfall data.

Eleazar Quijada is a 2nd year undergraduate student, currently enrolled in the College of Natural Resources and majoring in Environmental Sciences. Originally from the city of Lynwood in South East Los Angeles, Eleazar is delighted to be able to pursue his Bachelor's Degree within his home state. In his time at the University of California, he hopes to participate in and contribute to conservation-based research, and ultimately prepare himself to pursue a graduate degree in a similar field. In the Water & Carbon Lab, Eleazar is currently using remotely sensed chlorophyll-a data over the Arctic Ocean to understand the effects of fertilization from boreal fires.