Maggi Kelly - Professor and Cooperative Extension Specialist
Maggi has been at UC Berkeley since 1999 as a Professor and Cooperative Extension Specialist. Her working life is dedicated to all things geospatial. She loves maps! She works to bring cutting-edge mapping technology, training, and research support to the ANR and UC network of students, staff, faculty, and the public. Her group of students, staff, and postdocs (from UC Berkeley and UCANR) use a range of geospatial analysis approaches using data from numerous sources - spatial models, remote sensing, drones, lidar, historical archives, surveys, participatory mapping, and the field - to gain insights about how and why California landscapes are changing, and what that change means for those who live on, use, cherish, and manage our lands. The spatial data science field is evolving quickly, and Maggi actively works to build community around applied geospatial research and outreach locally at UC Berkeley and across the state. She is Faculty Director of the UCB Geospatial Innovation Facility (GIF) and Director of the ANR Statewide Program in Informatics and Geographic Information Systems (IGIS), both of which are dedicated to research, outreach and service in support of applied geospatial data and analysis.
Annie Taylor - PhD Student
Annie is partnering with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of California's Central Coast to study the ecological impacts of Indigenous stewardship practices with innovative geospatial tools. She has worked extensively in Google Earth Engine, a powerful remote sensing API, to study ecosystem change over time and space. Her previous research analyzed forest mortality in response to drought on Santa Cruz Island in the California Channel Islands. Annie comes to us after three years as a GIS Analyst at Peninsula Open Space Trust, an environmental nonprofit working to protect and steward parks, farmland, and open spaces in the Bay Area. Prior to that, she spent four years in Vermont at Middlebury College where she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology with a minor in Spanish language. She is dedicated to applying her skills in remote sensing, ecology, and GIS to study the earth and promote environmental justice and Indigenous sovereignty.
Roxy Cruz - Postdoctoral Scholar
Roxy (she/her) is a NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow working with both Dr. Maggi Kelly and Dr. Ben Blonder to study widespread tree mortality, specifically in quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), the most broadly distributed tree species in North America. She is a plant physiological ecologist, with a specialized background in plant-water relations, plant response to climate change-induced drought, cloud forest ecology, and stable isotope biogeochemistry. As a Postdoctoral Scholar, she is working to broaden her skillset and apply her ecophysiological background to genetics, remote sensing, and geospatial science to combat widespread tree die-off. She is deeply committed to broadening the participation of underrepresented and historically marginalized groups in the sciences and providing opportunities for others to cross exclusionary boundaries the way her journey has allowed her to do. Originally from East Los Angeles (Tovaangar, unceded Tongva lands) and now based in the East Bay (unceded Huichin Ohlone land), she completed her bachelor’s degree from Pitzer College, CA in Environmental Science and her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in the Dept. of Integrative Biology. She has also spent several years living in Nepal researching climate change impacts on cultural migration and forest management as a Fulbright Scholar and then working in poverty alleviation and education. She loves to climb trees, both for her research and for fun.
Former Kellylab Graduate Students (17)
Chippie Kislik, ESPM-UCB. 2022. “The Good, the Bad, the Algae: Using High Resolution Imagery to Detect Freshwater Algal Blooms in California”
Christine Wilkinson, PhD. ESPM-UCB. 2021. “Life Finds a Way: Carnivore Movement and Conflict in Developing Landscapes”
Kelly Easterday, PhD. ESPM-UCB. 2018. “Historical legacies shape contemporary forests and woodlands: a study of California landscapes integrating historical and modern ecological data”
Jenny Palomino, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with M Potts). 2018. “Spatial Data Science for addressing environmental challenges in the 21st century”
Anu Kramer, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with Scott Stephens). 2016: “Not seeing the forest for the points: Novel LiDAR metrics elucidate forest structure”
Shufei Lei, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with Alastair Illes). 2014: "Mapping Webs of Information, Conversation, and Social Connections: Evaluating the Mechanics of Collaborative Adaptive Management in the Sierra Nevada Forests”
Miriam Tsalyuk, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with Wayne Getz). 2014: “The Effect of Landscape Parameters on African Elephants (Loxodonta africana) Movement Decisions”
Sarah Lewis, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2013: “Geospatial strategies to optimize placement of advanced biofuels in marginal landscapes”
Marek Jakubowski, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2012: “Using lidar in wildfire ecology of the California Sierra-Nevada forests”
Lisa Schile, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2012: “Tidal Wetland Vegetation in the San Francisco Bay Estuary: Modeling Species Distributions with Sea-Level Rise”
Shasta Ferranto, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with Lynn Huntsinger). 2012: “Land use change in the working landscapes of California”
Esther Zeledon, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2010: “The Effect of War and Its Aftermath on Land Use and Land Cover in Jinotega Nicaragua”
Tim DeChant, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2009: “Merging tree physiology and landscape ecology: examining the effects of urbanization on California’s oak woodlands”
Karin Tuxen, Ph.D. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2007: “Functional mapping of wetland vegetation for monitoring and management”
Desheng Liu, Ph.D. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2006: “Spatio-temporal modeling and mapping of Sudden Oak Death in California”
Qinghua Guo, Ph.D. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with J. Battles). 2005: “Development of geospatial techniques for ecological analysis: A case study of Sudden Oak Death in California”
Kristin Byrd, PhD. ESPM-UCB. Advisor. 2005: “Temporal and Spatial Linkages between Watershed Land Use and Wetland Vegetation Response in the Elkhorn Slough Watershed, Monterey County, California”
Former Kellylab Postdoctoral Scholars
Alice Kelly 2013-2016; Patrick McIntyre 2012-2014; Jessica O’Connell 2012-2013; Feng Zhao 2010-2012; Lina Cao 2010-2011; Oliver Sonnentag 2008-2011; Yinan He 2018-2020
Former Kellylab Masters Students
Matt Wacker, M.S. ESPM-UCB. Graduate Advisor. Graduated Fall 2002. Thesis: “Land use vegetation change on El Dorado County, CA rangelands: implications for rangeland conservation.” Currently Land Steward at Marin Agricultural Land Trust
Travis Freed, M. S. ESPM-UCB. Co-Advisor (with S. Stephens)
Former Kellylab Undergraduate Students
Sophie Kolding, Jonah Lipsitt, John Dingman, Susan Nawbury, Andrea Kristof, Daniel Song, Hannah Lopez, Cam Kees, Ben Satzman
Former Kellylab Visitors
Proxima DasMohapatra, Ovidiu Csillik, Lauren Heumann, Jose Pena-Barragan, Celia Garcia, Alessandro Montaghi, Ken-ichi Ueda, Oscar Fernandez-Manso, Travis Freed, Faith Kearns, Javier Lozano, Jie Pei, Wanxiao Sun
Former Kellylab Staff
Stefania Di Tomasso, Jason Su, Sam Blanchard, John Connors, Brent Pedersen, Casey Cleve, Elsie Windes, Julian Metcalf, Mindy Syfert, Lauren McGee, Eric Waller, David Shaari, Henna Chou