The Virginia Tech Office for GIS and Remote Sensing Research 2026 Symposium

Yilun Zhao, Postdoc Biological Systems Engineering Department; Virginia Tech

Presentation Title: Flux Upscaling with Next-Generation Geospatial AI

Dr. Yilun Zhao is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research lies at the intersection of ecology, environmental conservation, remote sensing, and geospatial artificial intelligence. She develops data-driven approaches that integrate satellite observations and artificial intelligence to better understand ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity change across large spatial scales.

Her research focuses on advancing biodiversity and ecosystem function monitoring using remote sensing and geospatial AI. By integrating multi-source satellite imagery, ecological knowledge, and machine learning techniques, she investigates how ecosystems respond to both natural processes and management driven interventions. Her work has developed methods to characterize vegetation phenology at species and community levels, detect subtle and gradual ecosystem disturbances, and track large scale biodiversity changes using dense time series remote sensing data.

More recently, her research has expanded to quantifying ecosystem carbon dynamics in support of nature-based climate solutions. At Virginia Tech, she is contributing to the development of a benchmark framework for ecosystem carbon estimation that integrates ecosystem flux measurements, satellite observations, and environmental data. This framework aims to provide a transparent and scalable platform for evaluating and comparing data-driven approaches for estimating ecosystem carbon dynamics. By bringing together standardized datasets, modeling approaches, and evaluation methods, the effort seeks to support the development of more reliable tools for studying ecosystem carbon processes and improving large scale carbon monitoring.

Overall, Dr. Zhao’s research explores how emerging remote sensing technologies and AI-driven methods can enhance our ability to monitor, understand, and protect ecosystems in a rapidly changing world.

Susanna Werth, Assistant Professor of Hydrology and Remote Sensing; Virginia Tech

Presentation Title: Hidden Water on a Dynamic Planet: How Satellites Track Water Beneath the Surface

Born in eastern Germany, Dr. Susanna Werth grew up in a region shaped by profound historical, societal, and environmental change—an experience that sparked her awareness of the fragility of human systems and the importance of resources for flourishing communities. Over the course of her career, her focus turned to water, our most essential natural resource and one increasingly under pressure from global change and human activities. At a time when international organizations have warned of emerging “water bankruptcy” in many regions of the world, her work addresses the urgent need to better understand, monitor, and use water resources sustainably. Trained as a geodesist in Germany, she spent seven years working in the southwestern United States before joining Virginia Tech, where she has been for the past six years and now leads the Hydrologic Innovation and Remote Sensing (HIRS) Lab. Her research uses satellite remote sensing, geospatial data, and Earth system modeling to investigate water storage, groundwater dynamics, and related hazards. By integrating observations of gravity change, land deformation, and surface water dynamics, her work improves the understanding and prediction of drought, groundwater depletion, and land subsidence, with the goal of supporting truly sustainable water management.

https://sites.google.com/vt.edu/hirs/ 

Caroline Wood, GIS Analyst; HDR Inc.

Presentation Title: On the Right Track: Optimizing Rail Networks for LRS Success

Caroline Wood is a GIS Analyst at HDR Engineering where she works on a team which provides maps and applications for transportation, aviation, and water clients. 

Ms. Wood graduated from Eckerd College with a degree in Communication and Environmental Studies. Amidst her requirements for Environmental Studies, Ms. Wood stumbled into her passion for GIS in a course that everyone warned her about. After researching trout habitat in Tennessee and incorporating GIS into her thesis, Ms. Wood knew that GIS would become her career. 

Ms. Wood pursued her Master’s in Geospatial Information Sciences and Technology at North Carolina State University where she prepared applications for the campus pollinator garden program. The Survey123 program aimed to engage students as they walked around campus to report on the health of the gardens and the pollinators and insects seen in the gardens. 

Following her master’s degree, Ms. Wood began working at HDR Engineering in Lexington, Kentucky. The team she worked on supported projects for airports, local water authorities, and companies seeking solar power solutions. In May 2025, Ms. Wood moved to Virginia Beach where she continues to work for HDR, but with a focus on transportation projects. 

Ms. Wood strives to engage people with her maps; she wants people to be curious about maps, what they are showing, and how we can find new ways to show data. She loves sharing her passion of GIS and enlightening people on how they interact with GIS everyday whether that be through a GPS on the way to work, putting their trash on the curb, or searching for “ice cream near me.”

Seth Peery, Solutions Architect, Enterprise Applications; Virginia Tech Enterprise GIS Department

Award Presentation: Presentation of ESRI Innovation Program Student of the Year Award

Seth Peery is Senior GIS Architect in the Enterprise Systems unit of the Virginia Tech Division of Information Technology.

Seth manages the technology stack supporting the scalable storage, sharing, and dissemination of GIS data, maps and apps - so that you don't have to. The value proposition of his small but dedicated unit is to lower barriers to the use of GIS at an institutional scale, make faculty more competitive in their research, embrace geospatial methodologies in teaching and learning across the disciplines, further the outreach missions of the university, and improve its internal operations. 

His team supports GIS server infrastructure, integration between GIS and other enterprise information systems, application development and advanced spatial analysis. From ArcIMS to ArcGIS Online, from the datacenter to the cloud, he has evolved the campus's GIS infrastructure in concert with the waves of innovation in computing over time that are then applied towards geospatial problems. He represents the university through the ESRI Innovation Program, and works to keep Virginia Tech at the forefront of the geospatial state of the art within our peer institutions.