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Current Member

Kelly Caylor

Professor

Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Professor at Bren School & Geography.

Biography

Kelly Caylor is the Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation in the Office of Research and holds joint appointments at the Bren School and the Department of Geography. In his scholarship, Professor Caylor seeks to develop improved insight into the way that land use and climate change are interacting to affect the dynamics and resilience of global drylands. His primary research sites are in sub-Saharan Africa and the US Southwest, where he is focused on understanding the vulnerability of both managed and unmanaged ecosystems to current and future changes in hydrological dynamics. Professor Caylor conducts research at a number of spatial and temporal scales; from small-scale experiments during individual rainfall events all the way up to continental-scale analyses of climate trends. A major focus of his research is the development of new methods to improve the measurement and prediction of ecosystem water-use efficiency and novel observation networks for the characterization of coupled natural-human system dynamics. He is co-founder of Arable Labs, Inc (www.arable.com). Professor Caylor is the Editor in Chief of the AGU journal, Earth's Future, and has previously served on the editorial boards of Water Resources Research, the Journal of Geophysical Research — Biogeosciences, Vadose Zone Journal, and the Environmental Research Reviews section of Environmental Research Letters. He was a recipient of an Early Career Award from the NSF and was the inaugural recipient of the Early Career Award in Hydrological Sciences given by the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Recent Publications

Shifts in evapotranspiration components during heatwaves alter surface cooling

Han Chen, Stephen Good, E. Zahn, E. Bou-Zeid, Kelly Caylor, R.P. Fiorella, M. Haagsma, Lixin Wang

Earth's Future · 2026

A hybrid Penman-Monteith and machine learning model for simulation evapotranspiration and its components

Han Chen, Stephen Good, Kelly Caylor, R. Fiorella, Lixin Wang

Journal of Hydrology · 2026

Co-regulation of water use and canopy temperature in desert trees

Bryn Morgan, A.T. Trugman, Kelly Caylor

Agricultural & Forest Meteorology · 2026

Five Lessons for Closing the Last Mile: How to Make Climate Decision Support Actionable

K. Baylis, E. C. Lentz, Kelly Caylor, M. Gu, C. Gunderson, T. Haigh, M. Hayes, H. Lahr, D. Maxwell, C. Funk

Earth's Future · 2025

Ecological and hydroclimatic determinants of vegetation water-use strategies.

Bryn Morgan, Ryoko Araki, A. Trugman, Kelly Caylor

Nature Ecology & Evolution · 2025

Recent News

Grasses Are Spendthrifts, Forests Are Budgeters
ResearchJul 31, 2025

Research led by PhD student Bryn Morgan reveals that grasslands use water aggressively until it's gone, while forests cut back early to avoid disaster.

A Nuanced Model of Soil Moisture Illuminates Plant Behavior
ResearchJul 9, 2025

PhD student Ryoko Araki developed a nonlinear model that captures how plants dynamically respond to water stress—revealing whether ecosystems are water spenders or water savers.

Anna Boser Receives AGU Science for Solutions Award
AwardsSep 23, 2024

PhD student Anna Boser was awarded the 2024 AGU Science for Solutions Award, which recognizes significant contributions in applying Earth and space science to solve societal problems.

Education

BA in Environmental Sciences

University of Virginia

1997

PhD in Environmental Sciences

University of Virginia

2003

Quick Info

Status
Current Member