Kelly Easterday

Kelly’s research analyzes complex drivers of spatiotemporal change, including climate, fire, land management, and the ecological history of place. Drawing on the rapidly emerging field of spatial data science including remote sensing, and geographic analysis yet rooted in the theoretical constructs of historical ecology, landscape ecology, biogeography, land management and policy, and forest ecology.

Kelly pursues geospatially motivated mixed methods and interdisciplinary approach to assess these relationships and develop applied solutions across scales of analysis. 

She is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the Moore Foundation funded California Heartbeat Initiative using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) and wireless sensor networks to understand biophysical and ecohydrological controls of vegetation stress and distribution.

Her previous research utilized a historical vegetation survey to reconstruct nearly a century of change in California’s forest and woodlands