Dr. Matthew Hansen is a remote sensing scientist with a research specialization in large area land cover and land use change mapping. His research is focused on developing improved algorithms, data inputs and thematic outputs that enable the mapping of land cover change at regional, continental and global scales. His team’s research to operations products benchmark rates of global change, for example deforestation trends, expansion of crop and urban land uses, near-real time land disturbance, among other dynamics. The resulting maps are used by other scientists as inputs to biodiversity/habitat, carbon, climate and hydrological modeling studies, and by non-scientists in managing lands, for example local communities interdicting illegal encroachments. He has been a member of NASA’s MODIS Land Science Team, the NASA/USGS Landsat Science Team.

Dr. Alexandra (Sasha) Tyukavina is an Associate Research Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. Sasha has over a decade of experience in mapping and sample-based estimation of forest disturbance dynamics, regionally and globally. The majority of her work is funded by and supports the Global Forest Watch program. Sasha's most notable research projects include sample-based estimation of forest loss drivers in the tropics and global mapping of forest loss due to fire. She is currently continuing to work on all things sample-based and forest loss-related, and leading a NASA-funded research project characterizing the global hotspots of forest loss using high-resolution data.

John Brandt is a Senior Data Science Associate n the Restoration team at the World Resources Institute. He works on developing novel datasets to monitor forest and landscape restoration activities with remote sensing. His teams work analyzes petabytes of optical and radar satellite imagery with computer vision and deep learning approaches to map large-scale tree cover change.

Nancy is the Research Director for Global Forest Watch (GFW), an international initiative originated by the World Resources Institute to provide improved information about the world’s forests by merging the latest technology with on-the-ground partnerships. Nancy identifies research priorities for GFW and leads the acquisition and generation of new data and analytical content. She collaborates with GFW staff and partners to produce and communicate original, policy-relevant research that further advances global understanding of critical drivers and dynamics of forest change. Prior to joining WRI led research at Winrock International on forest carbon cycling and spatial modeling of land cover change and provided technical guidance to multiple stakeholders on climate change mitigation options in the land sector. Nancy holds a B.S. in Biology and Environmental Studies from Tufts University and a Ph.D. in Systems Ecology from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Dr. Xiao-Peng Song is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences at the University of Maryland, College Park. His research focuses on understanding the trends, drivers and impacts of global land-use change using satellite remote sensing and geospatial techniques. His work has been published in several leading academic journals, including Nature, Nature Food, and Nature Sustainability.

Zhen Song is an assistant research professor in University of Maryland, GLAD(Global Land Analysis & Discovery) lab. Her research focuses on vegetation dynamics mapping and monitoring.

Dr. Matthew Hansen is a remote sensing scientist with a research specialization in large area land cover and land use change mapping. His research is focused on developing improved algorithms, data inputs and thematic outputs that enable the mapping of land cover change at regional, continental and global scales. His team’s research to operations products benchmark rates of global change, for example deforestation trends, expansion of crop and urban land uses, near-real time land disturbance, among other dynamics. The resulting maps are used by other scientists as inputs to biodiversity/habitat, carbon, climate and hydrological modeling studies, and by non-scientists in managing lands, for example local communities interdicting illegal encroachments. He has been a member of NASA’s MODIS Land Science Team, the NASA/USGS Landsat Science Team.