Our Research Team

Anna received her PhD from the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, where was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow using satellite remote sensing and machine learning to study irrigation practices and water resources in California and Sub-Saharan Africa. She was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to Zambia and was the 2024 recipient of the AGU Science for Solutions Award and will begin a postdoctoral position at UC Berkeley this summer.

Keita received his PhD in 2019, studying how soil cracking and fracture networks influence carbon flux dynamics in dryland vertisols. He is now a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey.

Stephanie received her PhD from Princeton in 2017, using computer vision and machine learning to map agricultural development in Sub-Saharan Africa from satellite images. She is now a Senior Software Engineer in Machine Learning at Google.

Hilary received her MSE in 2015 and is now working at Ramboll-Environ.

Frances received her PhD studying how vegetation structure and rainfall patterns influence carbon dynamics in savannas. After a postdoc at Northern Arizona University, she joined Auburn University where she is now an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, studying geographically isolated wetlands and their environmental impact.

Kaiyu received his PhD in 2013, advised by Eric Wood, while also being an honorary member of the Princeton Ecohydrology lab. He is now a Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Stephen received his PhD in 2013, focusing on isotopic tracers to partition water vapor fluxes in dryland ecosystems. He is now an Associate Professor of Biological and Ecological Engineering at Oregon State University, where he studies ecohydrology, water resources, and isotope hydrology.

Trenton received his PhD in 2011, focusing on soil moisture sensing and ecosystem function. He is now a Professor of Hydrogeophysics and Associate Director of Research in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he studies water use efficiency in food production.

Garth received an MS degree from the Department of Geography at Indiana University.

Abi received his MS from Indiana University and PhD from the University of Virginia, studying dune mobilization and dust emission in the Southern Kalahari. After a postdoc at NC State, he is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University, where he studies land degradation, surface processes, and air quality.

Alex received his MSE in 2008 and is currently teaching high school math in Washington, D.C.

Adam was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University. Along with Kelly and Ben, we co-founded Arable Labs Inc. and served as the CEO from 2014-2020, developing sensor networks for agricultural decision support. He is now the Founder and CEO of Eion Corp, a carbon removal company.

Diana studied the role that roots play in determining seasonal patterns of water redistribution. She is now an independent consultant in water management in the Netherlands.

Keir remains involved in our group while also working at the Environmental Consultancy firm, S.S. Papadopulos & Associates.

Lixin was a postdoctoral researcher in the Caylor Lab from 2009-2011. He is now a Professor of Earth Sciences at Indiana University Indianapolis, where he studies water-vegetation-soil interactions in dryland ecosystems. He received the 2020 Research Frontiers Trailblazer Award and the 2021 President's Bicentennial Medal.

Lizzie was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton studying dryland social-ecological systems. She is now an Associate Professor with joint appointments in the Odum School of Ecology and Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, where she studies sustainability in African dryland social-ecological systems and tidal marsh restoration on the Georgia coast.

Lyndon received his PhD from UVA and was a postdoctoral researcher in the Caylor Lab at Princeton University. He is now a Professor in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, where he studies the drivers and impacts of agricultural land use change in Sub-Saharan Africa using Earth Observation and modeling approaches.

Marc was a NatureNet Postdoctoral Fellow based between UCSB and Princeton from 2016-2018, then an Associate Specialist at UCSB's ERI. He is now a Senior Scientist at Spatial Informatics Group-Natural Assets Laboratory (SIG-NAL), where he leads research on landscape management for climate change adaptation, and serves as Landscape Domain Lead for the Santa Barbara Regional Wildfire Mitigation Program.

Boniface is a laboratory assistant in the Princeton Ecohydrolgy Lab facility at the Mpala Research Center

Ekomwa is our former field research assistant at the Mpala Research Center

John manages the Ecohydrolgy Lab facility at the Mpala Research Center

Julia was a research technician at Mpala Research Centre maintaining the flux tower and developing software tools for our sensor systems. After roles at Continuum Analytics (Anaconda) and Saturn Cloud, she is now a Senior Software Developer at Element 84, where she works on geospatial research and maintains open source tools including Dask and HoloViz.

Molly is currently living and working in sunny southern California, where she is a member of the data team for Factual software.

Moses is a lab assistant in the Ecohydrology Lab facility at the Mpala Research Center

Noah develops coupled social-physical models of farmer decision making and crop growth

Alice was a research intern in our lab during the summer of 2011 and a thesis student during the 2011-2012 academic year. She wrote her thesis on methods for real-time characterization of the isotopic composition of plant transpiration fluxes.

Ben was lead hardware engineer for PulsePod and co-founded Arable Labs Inc. with Adam Wolf and Kelly Caylor.

Craig worked on the influence of dew droplets on the energy balance of Colocasia esculenta leaves.

Elliot graduated in 2016 and is now a PhD student at UC Berkeley.

Eric was a research intern working with Lyndon Estes on ecological applications of UAVs and especially UAV image processing workflows.

Ida wrote her thesis on the use of catalytic convertors for removing organics from vapor samples when conducting laser-based spectroscopy of water vapor isotopes. She is currently a fellow in the Princeton in Africa program.

Jimmy joined our lab through the Hutchins Scholars program at the Lawrenceville School. He worked on new techniques for organics removal in plant water samples.

Jeremy was a PEI intern involved in our root excavation work during the summer of 2010.

Marcus studied the consequences of agricultural expansion in Zambia, combining fieldwork, remote sensing and modeling.

Matteo was a PEI Grand Challenge Intern in 2014 working on different aspects of crop management.

Miranda wrote her senior thesis on plant water source changes in Kenya.

Rodrigo was an intern working with us in 2010 on our root excavation project. His duties included excavations and chief operator of the camp's vuvuzela.

Stephen's thesis was on the development of a low-cost disdrometer for agricultural monitoring in sub-Saharan Africa.

Connor joined our lab through the Hutchins Scholars program at the Lawrenceville School. He worked on the relative influence of foliar uptake and foliar shielding on leaf water isotopes.

Daozhi was a visiting researcher from the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development in Agriculture from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science.

Feng was a visiting researcher from the Institute of Desertification Studies from the Chinese Academy of Forestry, located in Beijing, China.

Guiomar was a visiting PhD student from the Universitat Politècnica de València focusing on the use of satellite data to implement parsimonious ecohydrological models in water-controlled areas.