Dr. Ralph Dubayah

 
Education

PhD  Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, 1990

Research Interests

• Land surface energy and water balances
• Remote sensing
• Climatology
• Landcover characterization

Ralph Dubayah is a Professor in the Geography Department at the University of Maryland College Park, and a Fellow at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. His main areas of research are landcover characterization and the land surface energy and water balances. He leads a NASA EOS Interdisciplinary Science Investigation (IDS) on the use of remote sensing for macroscale hydrological modeling. Most recently he is the principal investigator for the Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL), the first NASA Earth System Pathfinder (ESSP) mission, which will measure the three-dimensional structure of the Earth’s topography and forests. He serves in various U.S. national organizations, including the Remote Sensing Committee of the American Geophysical Union (chair).

• Estimation of Tropical Forest Aboveground Using Large-footprint Lidar
• Geomorphological Analysis of Terrains on Earth and Mars
• Remote Sensing for Land Surface Hydrology: Accuracy & Uncertainity Analysis
• Study of Land-Atmosphere Interactions Using Satellite Data Assimilation
• Terrestrial Hydrology and Climate Studies Using EOS-Era Data
• The Vegetation Canopy Lidar Mission
• Understanding Water, Energy and Climate: a GEWEX Global Water and Energy Budget Pathfinder Data Set
• Beyond Potential Vegetation: Improving Model Carbon Projections of the Land Surface Using Lidar Remote Sensing