Beth Tellman

Beth is a sustainability scientist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison, in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and is the co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Floodbase. Trained as a geographer, she earned a B.Sc. from Santa Clara University, an M.S. in Environmental Science from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University. She directs the Social[Pixel] Lab, which develops deep learning methods, satellite-based datasets, and social science to study the causes and consequences of global environmental change, with a focus on flood exposure and adaptation, machine learning for Earth observation, and land system science. Dr. Tellman has been recognized with the National Sustainability Society Emerging Scholar Award (2025), a Leading Woman in Machine Learning for Earth Observation (Radiant Earth Foundation, 2022), a NASA Early Career Investigator Award, an NSF CAREER Award, and an NCAR Faculty Innovator Fellowship. Beth co-founded an NGO in Mexico, Umbela, to promote transformation from Global South Perspectives. Beth is passionate about co-producing knowledge with actors outside academia to achieve social impact, and co-founded FLUJOS (Flood Justice Utilizing Satellite Observation), partnering with organizations in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas to incorporate lived experiences and satellite observations to build flood resilience in colonia communities. Email: beth.tellman at wisc dot edu
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Saurabh Kaushik is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, specializing in flood inundation mapping through vision transformers and multimodal remote sensing data. He completed his PhD at the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research-India and the German Aerospace Center, where he developed advanced deep learning models for glacial feature mapping, glacier velocity estimation, and Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) modeling. Previously, Saurabh was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Ohio State University, contributing to the Surface Ovoid Detection Algorithm project, focused on identifying potential hydrogen sites globally. There, he led the development of automated pipelines for geospatial data analysis, applying deep learning for object detection, segmentation, and SAR data analysis. Saurabh’s research sits at the intersection of remote sensing, AI, and computer vision, with a commitment to developing robust AI solutions for Earth observation and environmental insights.

Email: skaushik8 at wisc dot edu
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Seth Bryant is a research software engineer, flood modeler, and flood risk researcher, specializing in developing tools and methods to improve society's ability to coexist with flood cycles. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Montana State University, a Master's in Water Resources Engineering from the University of Alberta, and a PhD in Natural Hazards Research from the University of Potsdam. Over the past 15 years, Seth has worked on flood-related challenges in the U.S., Canada, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, and Germany. He has been very lucky to work and be affiliated with Deltares, fathom, GFZ, and the University of Arizona. He is a licensed Civil Engineer in Alberta, Canada, where he serves on the Federal Flood Mapping Committee.

Email: sbryant8 at wisc dot edu
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Hannah Friedrich is a PhD candidate in the School of Geography, Development, and Environment at the University of Arizona. Her dissertation explores aligning satellite-based indicators of post-hurricane recovery with interviews and administrative records on heirship property, households’ use of homeowners insurance, and litigation with insurance companies in Southwest Louisiana. Applying mixed methods, her research aims to identify the socio-legal limitations households face in addressing losses from extreme events and how this creates uneven geographies of recovery. Friedrich’s long-term research agenda is to work alongside disaster-impacted communities to translate inequities documented with various data sources to policymakers and advocate for more just climate adaptation. Her research is supported by a NASA Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology grant. She earned her master’s in geography from Oregon State University and bachelor’s degrees in geography and geographic information system/cartography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Email: hfriedrich at arizona dot edu
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Alex joined the Lab in Fall 2022 as a Geography PhD student at the University of Arizona. His research aims to leverage the potential of satellite data to improve financial resilience against floods, focusing on insurance and humanitarian applications. Previously, Alex worked as a technical advisor for Start Network, supporting NGOs to develop disaster risk financing systems to support the most vulnerable during crises. Prior, Alex worked for a global reinsurance broker as a risk analyst, modelling the possible impacts of catastrophes on insured assets. Alex completed his Geophysical Sciences undergraduate and master's degrees at the University of Leeds in the UK.

Email: alexsaunders at arizona dot edu
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Prashanti is a PhD student at University of Arizona, Department of Geography. As part of her research, she is interested in studying landscape change dynamics and its effect in particularly vulnerable regions like mountains. She completed her Bachelor's in Geography and Master’s in Geoinformatics from India following which she worked at ICIMOD to study drivers of land changes in the Himalayas. Prashanti aims to understand processes guiding human-environment interaction and its impact on ecosystem and communities by deploying skills of remote sensing and GIS. She endeavors to study changes in land use and climate and developing possible solutions for improved natural resource governance.

Email: psharma29 at arizona dot edu
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Lucas Belury (he/him/el) is a geographer, researcher, and facilitator working toward a sustainable and equitable world. He teaches at national conferences and has published articles on water injustice in the Rio Grande Valley, housing, and race equity. His research focuses on environmental racism, the informal economy, and data use in the non-profit space. His current work brings data analytics and Geographic Information Systems to diverse stakeholders, from grassroots non-profits to local and federal governments.

Email: lbelury at arizona dot edu

Elise joined the lab as a PhD student in fall 2022. She is interested in studying human-environment relationships through focusing on the links between floods and human migration in Honduras. She received her master's degree from Texas State University where she studied the relationships between climate change, hydrometeorological hazards, and human migration from Central America and Mexico to the US. Elise aims to further focus on the subsequent flood exposure that migrants experience during migrating from rural areas into urban informal settlements.

Email: arellanothompson at arizona dot edu

Ariful joined the lab as a PhD student at the Department of Geography, UofA in the fall of 2022. He completed his Bachelor's in Disaster Science and Management and Master’s in Water Resources Development from Bangladesh. He also worked at UNDP to study climate risk of the coastal zone in BD. He is interested in studying the local adaptation strategies of the most climate vulnerable communities. He is also focused on using remote sensing and machine learning in flood mapping and identifying its relation with flood mitigation, recovery, and adaptation.

Email: ariful at arizona dot edu
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Ufuoma Ovienmhada is a PostDoc in the School of Geography, Development, and Environment at the University of Arizona where she researches satellite data and machine learning applications for measuring flood exposure inequity in prison landscapes. Prior to beginning this position, Ufuoma completed a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In her dissertation, she employed a multi-method approach to research heat and air pollution exposure in carceral landscapes, co-design Earth Observation technologies to support environmental justice advocacy, and make recommendations for how the Earth Observation ecosystem at large can better serve environmental justice goals. Before arriving at MIT, she completed a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. Her current research is supported by the Paul and Alice Baker Climate Change and Human Resiliency fellowship on the Arizona Institute for Resilience

Email: ufuoma at arizona dot edu
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Zhijie(JJ) was postdoc from June 2022-June 2023 at the Tellman Lab. He is now an Assistant Professor of Practice at Utah State University in the Environment and Society Department. He completed his Bachelor's (Electrical Engineering) in China and Master's (Computer Engineering) at Rutgers University. Zhijie pursued his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut (Advisor - Dr. Chuanrong Zhang). In his doctoral research, he conducted efficient recognition of potential landslides using open-access multi-source remotely sensed images with deep learning approaches. He is interested in studying environmental change related to natural disasters and pollution by incorporating advanced deep learning models appropriate for each scenario. Zhijie's post-doctoral research will involve assessing the value of commercial satellite data on inundation detection and mapping floods in urban areas. Besides research, he loves photography, powerlifting, basketball, and boxing.

Email: zhijiezhang at arizona dot edu
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Jonathan was a postdoc November 2021-April 2024 at the Tellman Lab and is now at MIT with Sherrie Wang's lab. He completed his Bachelor's (Environmental Sciences and Engineering) and Master's (Environmental and Computational Sciences and Engineering), as well as his Ph.D. (thesis directors Prof. A. Rinaldo and Prof. D. Pasetto) in theoretical ecology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. Jonathan is an expert in mathematical modeling, ranging from machine learning models to spatially explicit process based models. His Ph.D. focused on population ecology, where he developed modeling solutions to describe the dynamics of mountain species in space and time - where Earth Observation data was used to describe the properties of the landscape, and in-situ data to train the models. With his background in machine learning, modeling and hydrology, Jonathan is currently interested in advancing machine learning techniques for flood mapping (extents, intensities and risks) based on remote sensing data. Besides research, Jonathan is a hobby game developer, beer and coffee enthusiast and avid cyclist and ski tourer.

Email: jgiezend at mit dot edu
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Rohit was a postdoc from June 2021- April 2024 at the Tellman Lab. He is now at Pacific Northwest National Labs with T.C Chakraborty He completed his Bachelor's (Computer Science) and Master's (Remote Sensing and GIS) in India. Rohit worked in the software industry for a brief period before pursuing his Ph.D. at the Ohio State University (Advisor - Dr. Desheng Liu). In his doctoral research, he applied deep learning to improve the spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions of publicly available satellite datasets. He is interested in leveraging the different perspectives offered by various satellite data sources to improve our understanding of our impact on the environment. Rohit's post-doctoral research will involve mapping floods in urban areas and detecting illicit land changes in protected areas. Besides research, he loves to read and play/follow soccer.

Email: rohitmukherjee at live dot com
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Ruixue graduated from the GIST program at University of Arizona, Department of Geography in May 2023. She studied remote sensing, natural hazards, and geomorphology. She received her Bachelor's in Physical Geography at the University of Arizona with a Geosciences minor. Besides research, Ruixue loves video games, Japanese anime and manga, hiking, and rock climbing.

Email: ruixuewang at arizona dot edu

Mitchell finished his undergraduate in Applied Math at the Columbia School of Engineering in May 2023. He developed a time series Sentinel-1 algorithm for index insurance in Bangladesh. He now works for Floodbase.

Tejit finished his undergraduate in Computer Science at the Columbia School of Engineering in May 2021. He studied Machine Learning and AI and is interested in applications of technologies in various fields. At the Tellman Lab, he worked on Natural Language Processing to analyse online newspaper data to aid flood index insurance in Bangladesh. He now works for Microsoft.
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Johanna finished her undergraduate at Columbia College studying Computer Science and Sustainable Development in May 2021. She assessed the feasibility of translating the Sentinel-1 algorithm developed for Bangladesh in Colombia.

Dorothee will be starting her Master of Engineering in Computer Science at Cornell Tech in Fall 2021. She has completed a Bachelor’s in Computer Science at Columbia University where she specialized in Intelligent Systems and AI, and is interested in pursuing the differing applications in this field. Dorothee is assisting in using Natural Language Processing to extract information from media sources.