Defense Presentation Title: Disaster Nonprofit Relief, and Housing Recovery, Using GIS Techniques Advisor: Dr. Bethany Cutts, faculty fellow and associate professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management Abstract: Volunteer organizations contribute to household disaster recovery through coordinated networks. North Carolina Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (NCVOAD) is the North Carolina chapter of…

Defense Presentation Title: Linking Forests and Freshwater across the Southern Appalachian Forest Landscape Advisor: Dr. Katherine Martin, faculty fellow and assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources Abstract: Forests act as natural water towers, provisioning freshwater downstream to support aquatic biodiversity and supply drinking water, agriculture and energy. Understanding how climate change…

Defense Presentation Title: Computationally Efficient Approaches to Modeling Flood Risk and River Discharge at Scale Co-Advisors: Dr. Ross Meentemeyer, Director, Center for Geospatial Analytics; Dr. Georgina Sanchez, Research Scholar, Center for Geospatial Analytics Abstract: River discharge—the volume of water flowing through Earth’s rivers—is highly variable in space and time and at its extremes can cause…

Defense Presentation Title: Advancing Near Real-Time Deforestation Monitoring via Multi-Source Remote Sensing Data, Landscape Processes and End-User Contributions Advisor: Dr. Josh Gray, faculty fellow and associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources Abstract: The proliferation of satellite imagery has facilitated the analysis of deforestation trends using multi-source time series approaches. This long-term…

Defense Presentation Title: Does Chilling Explain the Divergent Response of Spring Phenology to Urban Heat Islands? Advisor: Dr. Josh Gray, faculty fellow and associate professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources Abstract: Understanding how temperature controls plant spring phenology, the timing of plants’ spring leaf development, is critical to studying the global carbon…

Defense Presentation Title: Assessing Spatio-Temporal Variability in Watershed Nutrient Loadings Using Statistical-Mechanistic Modeling Advisor: Dr. Dan Obenour, faculty fellow and associate professor in the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering Abstract: Nutrient pollution is a global concern that threatens surface water quality. This research focuses on characterizing critical nutrient loading and retention rates to…