Trulli

Director


Carlos Alberto Silva, Ph.D.

 Carlos Alberto Silva is an Assistant Professor of Quantitative Forest Science in the School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (FFGS) at the University of Florida (UF) where he directs the Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing Lab (Silva Lab). He is interested in understanding how forest ecosystems changes over time due to natural and anthropogenic disturbances and their impact on the carbon cycle. His core research consists of developing statistical frameworks and cutting-edge open-source tools for remote sensing data processing and forest resources monitoring. He is particularly interested in using lidar (light detection and ranging) data combined with multi- and hyperspectral satellite data and advanced statistical methods to address ecological questions related to forest ecosystem structure, function, and composition dynamics at a variety of spatial scales.

Affiliated professors and scientists


Carine Klauberg, Ph.D.

 Dr. Klauberg is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Forest Engineering at the Federal University of Sao Joao Del-Rei, Brazil. Previously, she worked for three years as a postdoctoral fellow working in GIS and forest fire at the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) – USDA Forest Service. She earned her Ph.D. focusing on sustainable management of non-timber tropical forest products, including lianas, in the Amazon at the Luiz de Queiroz Superior School of Agriculture (ESALQ) from the University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil in 2014. She also obtained a BSc in Forest Engineering at the Santa Catarina State University (UDESC) in 2009. Currently, she is leading a research project funded by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development, and the aim of this project is to map fuel load and simulate fire behavior and spread in the Cerrado biome using modeling and remote sensing technologies, including NASA’s GEDI. Her previous projects include: i) Production and management of two potential non-timber forest products in the Amazon context - the cipó-titica (Heteropsis spp.) and copaiba (Copaifera spp.), while at ESALQ-USP, Brazil; ii) Predicting immediate and extended fire effects on a mixed conifer forest at high resolution from lidar and multispectral imagery, at the Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) – USDA Forest Service, USA; iii) Forest management and economics of non-timber forest product while at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid – UPM, Madrid, Spain; iv) Heterogeneity of babaçu palm (Attalea speciosa) forests productivity in Northeastern Brazil, while at the Embrapa; iv) Floristic and phytosociological characterization of a fragment of Mixed Ombrophilous Forest in Santa Catarina State while at the UDESC, Brazil. She has experience in tropical forest management, remote sensing, statistics, computer programming (e.g., R) and mapping. For instance, she is currently teaching a course focusing on tropical forest management, and the lecture is mainly devoted to using field and remote sensing data to for performing reduced impact logging (RIL) in tropical forest environments in the Amazon. Also, she has experience in R programing. For example, she is the co-developer of a suite of Web-lidar tools and open-source packages in R, such as rLiDAR (the first R package for lidar data processing), rForest (an R package for forest mensuration and tree taper model development), and ForestGapR (an R package for forest gap detection and ecology) and rGEDI (an R package or GEDI data processing and visualization).

Andrew Hudak, Ph.D.

 Dr. Hudak is a Research Scientist at the USDA Forest Service - Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS). His research interests include landscape, vegetation, and fire ecology; remote sensing of vegetation patterns and processes; forest and rangeland ecology and management; empirical modeling of spatially explicit ecological data. He works to improve LiDAR data analysis capabilities for vegetation applications. He also work with fire scientists to relate postfire effects to prefire fuels and active fire behavior on prescribed fires, where it's safe and logistically feasible to measure these variables before, during, and after the fire. An improved fundamental understanding of fire as a process will advance fire science and help fire managers make better decisions. He also study the effectiveness of fuel treatments for mitigating wildfire severity.

Current Postdoctoral Fellows


Inatio T. Bueno, Ph.D.

 Jun.2023 - present: Inacio T. Bueno is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Florida (Gainesville, USA). He is a forest engineer (Ph.D.) with a background in remote sensing, GIS, data science, and programming. Currently, he works at the SilvaLab at UF, investigating the synergism of GEDI, Sentinel and Optical data for assessing the impact of Hurrican Ian in forest ecossystems accross the state of Florid.

Caio Hamamura, Ph.D.

Aug.2023 - present: Dr. Caio Hamamura is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Florida (Gainesville, USA). He is a biologist (Ph.D.) with a background in remote sensing, GIS, data science, software, and package development for scientific computing in R, QGIS, and Python. Currently, he works at the SilvaLab at UF, investigating the synergism of ICESat-2 data and Ecosystem Demography for assessing forest recovery post-hurricane disturbance in Sourthern US.

Eugenia Kelly, Ph.D.

 Jun.2023 - present: Dr. Eugenia Kelly is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Florida (Gainesville, USA). She is a biologist (Ph.D.) with a background in fire ecology. Currently, she works at the SilvaLab at UF, investigating the synergism of lidar, SAR and Optical data for mapping fire fuels in Western US.

Current Ph.D. students


Monique Schlickmann

 Aug.2022 - present: Monique Bohora Schlickmann is a Ph.D. student in Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida. She is interested in understanding how tropical biomes are changing over time due to anthropogenic modifications and climate change, using remote sensing approaches. She joined the Forest Biometrics, Remote Sensing, and Artificial Intelligence lab in August 2022 under the direction of Dr. Carlos Silva. She is currently working on her first Ph.D. chapter related to upscaling GEDI-derived fuel load estimates using optical and SAR data in the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado). In addition, she is involved in projects related to plants' functional traits and how they can predict the vulnerability of tropical species to droughts and fire events.

Jinyi Xia

Aug.2022 - present: Jinyi Xia is a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida's School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS). Her research interests include quantitative analysis of tree structure features, reconstruction of forest scenes, deep learning, and simulation of LiDAR signals. She completed her BSc and MSc in China with a major in Geographic Information System. She is presently working in the Forest Biometrics and Remote Sensing Lab (Silva Lab) on leaf and wood separation using Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) data in Southern Pine Forests. She is also interested in developing open-source tools for efficient TLS data processing.

Diego Rocha

Aug.2022 - present: Diego Rocha is a Ph.D. student in Forest Resources and Conservation at the University of Florida (Gainesville, USA). His research interests include using LiDAR systems (e.g., ALS, TLS, and UAV) for the assessment of forest structure and forest modeling, as well as the applications of hyperspectral data. Additionally, he is interested in making science accessible and understandable to everyone. For his Ph.D. project, he is going to work with combining LiDAR data from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) with Landsat data and field data from Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) to estimate the availability of fuel (biomass) and the risk of fires in the western USA.

Ph.D. students alumni


Rodrigo Vieira Leite

 Jan.2020 - Dec.2022: Rodrigo Leite is a Forest Science Ph.D. student at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), Brazil. His research interests include empirical modeling of vegetation traits and the use of remote sensing technologies applied to forest management, monitoring and conservation. He is currently working with Dr. Silva as part of the CNPq-PrevFogo project and developing machine learning models to estimate fuel loads in tropical savannas by integrating spaceborne lidar (e.g. NASA’s GEDI) and optical data (e.g. L8, S2A..etc).

Maira Beatriz Teixeira

Jan.2019 - Dec.2021: Maira B. Teixeira is a Ph.D. student in Forest Sciences at the University of Brasília - UnB. She is interested in the area of forest ecology and nature conservation, forest inventory and forest management, recovery of degraded areas, forest fires and remote sensing. Currently, she is working with Dr. Silva in the CPNq-Prevfogo project and is developting advanced methods for fuel load mapping and fire behavior simulation and propagationin in the Cerrado biome using remote sensing technologies (e.g. UAV-lidar; NASA's GEDI).

Franciel Rex

Jan.2020 - Aug.2023: Franciel Rex is a Ph.D. student in Forest Engineering at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR). He also is a adjunct professor at the State University of Mato Grosso, teaching classes at the Forestry and Biological Sciences department. His interests are directed in the field of forest management, ecology and nature conservation, forest inventory, and remote sensing. He is currently working with Dr. Silva as part of the CNPq-PrevFogo project and developing predictive models for mapping forest diversity in the Cerrado biome using remote sensing technologies such as NASA's GEDI, Sentinel-2 and PRISMA.

Current Undergraduate Students


Kody Brock

April.2023 - present: Kody is an undergraduate student at the UF - SFFG pursuing a degree in forest resource management. Her interests include wildland fire research and remote sensing. She is currently working with Dr. Silva and others in the USDA NIFA project on assessing the impact of Hurricane Ian accross Forest Ecosystems in the state of Florida.

Undergraduate students alumni


Anne Laura da Silva

Jan.2018 - Dec.2019: Anne Laura is an undergraduate working with Dr. Silva as part of CNPq-Prevfogo project over the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado). She participated in field data collection for the PrevFogo project and developed projects using remote sensing and GIS tools. Currently, she is working on her undergraduate final project with the objective of developing a framework for estimating assortment volumes in industrial Pinus taeda forest plantation using NASA' GEDI data.


Liam Halloran

March.2022 - May.2022: Liam Halloran is an undergraduate student at the University of Florida in the school of forest, fisheries, and geomatic sciences. Currently pursuing a degree in forest resource management, his interests include wildland fire research/practic and the incorporation of sustainable practices, especially when it comes to maintaining local and global biodiversity, in the timber industry. He is currently working with Dr. Silva and others in the DeLuca preserve to develop a bioeconomic model for wildfire risk that takes into account fuel loads both in the stand of interest and adjacent stands, timber production, carbon sequestration, water production, and plant biodiversity using the Riegl VZ400i laser measurement system. This model can then be used by public and private entities alike to help guide management decisions in southeastern pine forests.


Evan F. Quigley

March.2022 - May.2022: Evan F. Quigley is an undergraduate in the University of Florida School of Forests, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (SFFGS), having special interests in Urban Forestry and Landscape Architecture. He is currently working alongside Dr. Silva to integrate field and ground-based LiDAR data collection into forest management practices, by helping to create bioeconomic models and projections for a multitude of silvic metrics regarding Southwest Florida’s DeLuca Preserve and the surrounding managed areas.


Jennifer L. Jarman

 March.2022 - May.2022: Jennifer Jarman is currently studying Forest Resources and Conservation, as an undergraduate, at the University of Florida School of Forestry Fisheries and Geomatic Sciences (SFFGS). With a focus on Forest Resources Management, she is working with Dr. Silva and his team to collect Forest Biometrics data using LiDAR. She is using Riegl VZ 400i to monitor forest ecosystems, and developing the best Forest Management practices in the DeLuca Preserve and beyond.

Visiting students


Gabriel M. Silva

July.2023 - present: Gabriel Silva is a Ph.D. of remote sensing at the National Institute of Remote Sensing (INPE), in Brazil. At the Silvalab, he is working with terrestrial laser scanning data for mapping fuel load consumption in prescribed fires in southern US.


Fernando V. C. L. Gomes

August.2023 - present: Fernando Gomes is an undergraduate in at the IME, Brazil, pursuing degreen on computing science. At the Silvalab UF, he is developing a deep learning framework for assessing post-hurricane damage severity using PlanetScope and GEDI data in Sourthern forests.


Mauro A. Karasinski

Dec.2022 - June.2023: Mauro Karasinski is an PhD student at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR), Brazil. At the Silvalab UF, he developed a framework for upscaling GEDI-derived AGBD estimates from optical and SAR data in southern forests.


Luiz G. A. Nogueira

Aug.2022 - Dec.2023: Luiz G. A. Nogueira is an undergraduate in at the IME, Brazil. At the Silvalab UF, he developed a framework for UAV-lidar data processing and aboveground biomass estimation in the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado).


Danilo R. F. Souza

 Aug.2022 - Dec.2023: Luiz G. A. Nogueira is an undergraduate in at the IME, Brazil. At the Silvalab UF, he developed a framework for UAV-lidar data processing and aboveground biomass estimation in the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado).

Collaborators

Andrew T. Hudak

 US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 1221 South 64 Main Street, Moscow, ID 83843, USA

Adrian Cardil

 Department of Crop and Forest Sciences, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain

André Große-Stoltenberg

 Division of Landscape Ecology and Landscape Planning, Justus-Liebig-University Gießen, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392 Gießen, Germany;

André Hirsch

 Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei – UFSJ, Sete Lagoas, MG, Brazil, 35701-970;

Ana Paula Dalla Corte

 Department of Forest Engineering, Federal University of Parana (UFPR), Curitiba, PR, Brazil, 80.210-130;

Amy Neuenschwander

 Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA;

Akira Kato

 Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, 648 Matsudo Matsudo, Chiba, 2710092, Japan;

Alexandre Martins Abdao Dos Passo

 Rodovia MG-424, Km 45, CEP: 35701-970 - Sete Lagoas - MG. Brazil;

Ajay Sharma

 School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Bruno Lopes de Faria

 Department of Forest Science, Federal University of Vales do Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, (UFVJM) Campus JK, Diamantina, MG, Brazil,

Bruno Araujo Furtado de Mendonça

 Silviculture Department, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Rua da Floresta, Seropedica, RJ, 23897-005, Brazil;

Carine Klauberg Silva

 Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei – UFSJ, Sete Lagoas, MG, Brazil, 35701-970;

Caio Hamamura

 Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of São Paulo, SP, 11533-160, Brazil;

Cibele Hummel do Amaral

 Department of Forest Engineering, Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), Av. Peter Henry Rolfs, 6570-900, Viçosa, MG, Brazil;

Celso H. L. Silva Junior

 National Institute for Space Research, Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division, Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, São José dos Campos SP 12227-010, Brazil,

Daniel J. Johnson

 School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Danilo Roberti Alves de Almeida

 Department of Forest Sciences, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo (USP/ESALQ), Piracicaba, SP, Brazil;

Eraldo Aparecido Trondoli Matricardi

 Department of Forestry, University of Brasilia, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Brasilia, DF, Brazil - 70.910-900;

Eben North Broadbent

 Spatial Ecology and Conservation (SPEC) Lab, School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Jeff Aktins

 Center for Forest Assessment and Syntheses, USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station, New Ellenton, SC, USA

Gabriel Atticciati Prata

 Spatial Ecology and Conservation (SPEC) Lab, School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Gary Peter

 School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Gustavo Eduardo Marcatti

 Federal University of Sao Joao Del Rei – UFSJ, Sete Lagoas, MG, Brazil, 35701-970;

Hooman Latifi

 Department of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing - Faculty of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering K. N. Toosi University of Technology -No. 1346, Valiasr Str., Mirdamad crossing, Iran;

Jason Vogel

 School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Jingjing Liang

 Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA,

Jingfeng Xiao

 Earth Systems Research Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03820, USA

Kerri Vierling

 College of Natural Resources - Department of Natural Resources and Society - University of Idaho (UI)

Lee Vierling

 College of Natural Resources - Department of Natural Resources and Society - University of Idaho (UI)

Laura Duncanson

 Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, MD 20740, USA

Luiz E. O. C. Aragão

 National Institute for Space Research, Earth Observation and Geoinformatics Division, Av. dos Astronautas, 1758, São José dos Campos SP 12227-010, Brazil,

Luiz C. Estraviz

 Department of Forest Sciences, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo (USP/ESALQ), Piracicaba, SP, Brazil;

Lian-Zhi Huo

 Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;

Lola Fatoyinbo

 Biosciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20707, USA;

Mariano García

 Environmental Remote Sensing Research Group, Department of Geology, Geography and the Environment, Universidad de Alcala, Calle Colegios 2, Alcala de Henares, 28801, Spain.

Marc Simard

 NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA

Nathan Thomas

 Biosciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20707, USA

Paul Montesano

 Biosciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20707, USA

Mid Mohan

 Department of Geography, University of California—Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA;

Pedro Brancalion

 Department of Forest Sciences, Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture, University of São Paulo (USP/ESALQ), Piracicaba, SP, Brazil;

Qu Yonghua

 State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science - Institute of Remote Sensing Science and Engineering Faculty of Geographical Science -Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

Ruben Valbuena

 School of Natural Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor LL57 2W, UK.

Sassan Saatchi

 NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA

Steve Hancock

 School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Samuel de Padua Chaves e Carvalho

 College of Forestry, Federal University of Mato Grosso, Av. Fernando Correa da Costa, 2367, Boa Esperanca, Cuiaba, MT 78060-900, Brazil

Sérgio Godinho

 EaRSLab—Earth Remote Sensing Laboratory, University of Evora, 7000-671 Evora, Portugal

Shaun Levick

 CSIRO Land and Water, PMB 44, Winnellie, NT 0822, Australia;

Timothy A. Martin

School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 USA;

Trina Merrick

 Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA.

Troy Magney

 Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, USA

Veraldo Liesenberg

 Department of Forest Engineering, College of Agriculture and Veterinary, Santa Catarina State University (UDESC), Lages, SC, Brazil;

Wan Shafrina Wan Mohd Jaafar

 Earth Observation Centre, Institute of Climate Change, National University of Malaysia (UKM), Bangi 43600, Malaysia;