Dr. Ruth DeFries

 
Education

Ph.D. (1980)   Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

B.A., summa cum laude (1976)
Washington University, St. Louis, MO (major in earth science)

Research Interests

• relationships between human activities, the land surface, and the biophysical and biogeochemical processes that regulate the Earth's habitability
• remote sensing of land cover change at regional and global scales to assess the consequences for ecosystem services

Ruth DeFries is a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park with joint appointments in the Department of Geography and the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center.    Her research investigates the relationships between human activities, the land surface, and the biophysical and biogeochemical processes that regulate the Earth's habitability.  She is interested in observing land cover and land use change at regional and global scales with remotely sensed data and exploring the implications for ecological services such as climate regulation, the carbon cycle, and biodiversity.  Dr. DeFries obtained a Ph.D. in 1980 from the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor's degree in 1976 from Washington University with a major in earth science.  Previously, Dr. DeFries worked at the National Research Council with the Committee on Global Change and taught at the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay.  She is a fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program.

Research Projects

• Integrating Coarse and Fine Resolution Satellite Data to Monitor Land Cover Change Throughout Amazonia
• Land Use Change in and Around Protected Areas in LCLUC Sites: Synthesis of Rates and Consequences for Biodiversity
• Estimating Carbon Emissions from Historical Changes in Global Agricultural Land

Representative Publications

DeFries, R., Foley, J., & Asner, G.P. (in press)

Land Use Choices: Balancing Human Needs and Ecosystems Function.
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

DeFries, R., Hansen, A.J., Newton, A.C., & Hansen, M.C.(in press)

Increasing isolation of protected areas in tropical forests over the past twenty years.
Ecological Applications.

DeFries, R., Bounoua, L. and Collatz, G.J., (2002)

Human modification of the landscape and surface climate in the next fifty years.
Global Change Biology,8, 438-458.

DeFries, R.(2002)

Past and future sensitivity of primary production to human modification of the landscape.
Geophysical Research Letters, 29(7), 36-31 - 36-34.

DeFries, R., Houghton, R.A., Hansen, M., Field, C., Skole, D.L., & Townshend, J. (2002)

Carbon emissions from tropical deforestation and regrowth based on satellite observations for the 1980s and 90s.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 99(22), 14256-14261