Research

I am a multidisciplinary scientist from Costa Rica, with research experience in tropical forestry, forest ecology, diversity assessment, GIS, remote sensing and landscape ecology. I am currently the Academic Director for the Geographic Information Centre (GIC), a facility in the Geography Department at McGill University, that supports faculty, students, researchers in topics related to GIS and Remote sensing in different disciplines (conservation, socio-economic development, health, etc). Currently I am continuing the research I started during my PhD -developing a Forestry GIS for Costa Rica, and assessing species richness (trees) at the alpha, beta and gamma levels. Here at McGill, I am working with Dr. Margaret Kalacska in several topics ranging from mass grave detection using hyperspectral imagery to the use of machine learning techniques. I also collaborate with Dr. Oliver Coomes on characterizing various aspects of the Amazon River floodplain in the Peruvian Amazon. In addition, I am part of an MCRI with the Indian Ocean World Centre working on data and analytical aspect related to human-environmental interactions. My latest research is focusing on conservation of forest and endemic fish species in tropical regions.