Ross Meentemeyer
Director
Jordan Hall 5114
Ross provides strategic direction and oversight for the Center’s programs and initiatives in research and academics. He works across disciplinary boundaries to develop innovative analytics for scenario-based modeling and visualization of alternative futures. Ross is a Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Professor and faculty member in the College of Natural Resources. He has been principal investigator of numerous research grants totaling over $15M, including two decades of continuous funding from the National Science Foundation. His projects catalyze the creation of interdisciplinary teams of data scientists––from the natural and social sciences, engineering, and design––who are collaborating on grand societal challenges, such as controlling the spread of infectious disease and creating smart and connected cities. According to Ross, “everything is spatial and location matters in science, society and decision-making.” Ross received his Ph.D. in geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also served as president of the US-International Association of Landscape Ecology from 2016 to 2018.
Roles
Publications
- Quantifying the visual-sensory landscape qualities that contribute to cultural ecosystem services using social media and LiDAR (2018)
- Spatial patterns of development drive water use (2018)
- Tangible topographic modeling for landscape architects (2018)
- Exploring perceived restoration potential of urban green enclosure through immersive virtual environments (2018)
- The managed clearing: An overlooked land-cover type in urbanizing regions? (2018)
- Using landscape characteristics to predict distribution of temperate-breeding Canada geese (2017)
- Payments for carbon sequestration to alleviate development pressure in a rapidly urbanizing region (2017)
- Who wants more open space? Study of willingness to be taxed to preserve open space in an urban environment (2017)
- Comparing quantity, allocation and configuration accuracy of multiple land change models (2017)
- Multi-temporal trajectories of landscape change explain forest biodiversity in urbanizing ecosystems (2017)