PSW 2509 Remote Sensing of Wildfires | Falkowski & Seablom

Lecture Starts at 15:03 www.pswscience.org PSW #2509 February 7, 2025 Remote Sensing of Wildfires Michael Falkowski Program Manager NASA Wildland Fires Program Michael Seablom Associate Director for Technology, Earth Science Division NASA Science Mission Directorate Wildland fire is a natural disturbance and a fundamental process in many ecosystems. In many parts of the world, however, due to a combination of global change, increased fire season length, and an expanding wildland-urban interface, fires have become more frequent, larger, faster, and ultimately more dangerous to human communities. This talk will discuss how NASA is contributing to the development of technology to enhance Earth observation capabilities and their use by operational wildland fire management agencies. These new capabilities will provide improved data for understanding the changing fire dynamics and aid improving methods for fire mitigation, management, and recovery, and for helping to build communities that are more fire resilient. Michael J. Falkowski is the Program Manager of the NASA Wildland Fire program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC where he focuses on facilitating the development of wildland fire technology, research, and related applications. Before joining NASA Mike was Professor of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability at Colorado State University and conducted research on ecosystem science and management. Before that he held faculty positions at the University of Minnesota and Michigan Technological University and was also a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Research Fellow with the Canadian Forest Service at the Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria, British Columbia. Before he began his academic career, Mike served on wildfire and prescribed fire crews, gaining hands-on experience with managing fires and with the communities that work on the ground in fire management. Falkowski earned an MS and PhD in Forestry at the University of Idaho. Michael Seablom is the Associate Director for Technology in NASA’s Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters. He manages a portfolio of programs that invest in the next generation of Earth Science missions. He previously served as Chief Technologist for the NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, responsible for surveying and assessing technology needs for the Heliophysics, Astrophysics, Earth Science, and Planetary Science Divisions, and for promoting crosscutting capabilities throughout the Agency. Mike is a meteorologist by training. He began his career applying estimation theory to data assimilation for numerical weather prediction and developed one of the first parallel implementations of this approach. Seablom earned a MS in Meteorology at Florida State University, an MS in Atmospheric Science at Purdue, and an MBA in Management of Technology at Georgia Tech. www.pswscience.org