Joe Mascaro, Biography
Profile
Dr. Joe Mascaro explores ecological and technological evolution in the Anthropocene, working at the intersection of pure research into global environmental change, and efforts to develop new Earth monitoring and climate mitigation strategies. Joe has authored a substantial number of publications, including more than 40 peer-reviewed articles exploring Anthropocene ecosystems through a combination of field work and advanced imaging technologies, as well as philosophical investigations into human relationships to ecological and technological change. He is currently researching the evolution of climate change mitigation technologies, drawing on insights from his time in the aerospace industry.
As Director of Academic Programs, at Planet, a San Francisco-based aerospace company that operates the largest fleet of Earth-imaging satellites, Joe created Planet’s Education and Research Program, and worked with an exceptionally talented team on science, environmental, and humanitarian engagement, building Planet’s efforts to improve forest monitoring and conservation, track glacier retreat and cryosphere change, enhance food security, and promote ecological resilience for some of the world’s most vulnerable communities. As Business Development Lead for Education and Research, Joe secured Planet’s largest science contracts, partnering with NASA, Arizona State University, Stanford University, and numerous other universities and science organizations. Joe designed academic products, developed and directed a science communication and engagement strategy, and worked to establish Planet as a rigorous and reliable source of science-grade environmental data. The effort resulted in more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and a significant body of research projects within the first two years of the program.
Joe’s doctoral research explored the proliferation of ‘novel’ ecosystems in the Anthropocene, a global phenomenon in which new ecosystems are emerging without historical precedent. He initially surveyed various causes and effects of the appearance of novel ecosystems across a variety of Earth’s biomes. In Hawaii, Joe showed that novel ecosystems maintained critical ecosystem processes such as tree species diversity, productivity, and nutrient turnover, even after a decline in native species. As part of a community focused on the broader consequences of the Anthropocene, Joe contributed to the development of a generalized theory of novel ecosystems. He secured a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant to support his work.
In postdoctoral work at the Carnegie Institution for Science and Smithsonian Institution, Joe innovated new remote sensing methods to track the loss of carbon from the world’s tropical forests using advanced imaging technology. He was part of the first team to demonstrate that airborne LiDAR (light detection and ranging) could effectively substitute for field-based methods of monitoring carbon stocks in tropical forests, pointing the way towards a globally comprehensive monitoring system to track carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
Prior to joining Planet, Joe was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in the US Global Development Lab at USAID, supporting worldwide efforts to use science and technology to reduce poverty. Joe worked with colleagues at USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation to launch the Global Resilience Partnership, developing innovative challenge and grants programs in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and South and Southeast Asia.
Joe’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Aeon Magazine, Ecology, Ecological Monographs, Remote Sensing of Environment, Remote Sensing, and numerous other publications. Joe is a regular peer-reviewer of more than 20 scientific journals and several grant panels, and an experienced public speaker.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Finer, M., Novoa, S., Weisse, M.J., Peterson, R., Mascaro, J., Souto, T. and Martinez, R. G. (2018) Combating deforestation: from satellite to intervention. Science, 360: 1303-1305.
McCabe, M.F., Aragon, B., Houborg, R. and Mascaro, J. (2017) CubeSats in hydrology: ultrahigh-resolution insights into vegetation dynamics and terrestrial evaporation. Water Resources Research, 53: 10017-10024.
Asner, G. P., Martin, R.E. and Mascaro, J. (2017) Coral reef atoll assessment in the South China Sea using Planet Dove satellites. Remote Sensing of Ecology and Conservation, 3: 57-65.
Cooley, S.W., Smith, L.C., Stepan, L. and Mascaro, J. (2017) Tracking dynamic northern surface water changes with high-frequency Planet cubesat imagery. Remote Sensing, 9: 1306.
Kääb, A., Altena, B. and Mascaro, J. (2017) Coseismic displacements of the 14 November 2016 Mw 7.8 Kaikoura, New Zealand, earthquake using the Planet optical cubesat constellation. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 17: 627-639.
Asner, G.P., Knapp, D.E., Martin, R.E., Tupayachi, R., Anderson, C.B., Mascaro, J., Sinca, F., Chadwick, K.D., Higgins, M., Farfan, W., León, W.A.L. and Silman, M.R. (2014) Targeted carbon conservation at national scales with high-resolution monitoring. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111: E5016-E5022.
Mascaro, J., Asner, G.P., Davies, S., Dehgan, A. and Saatchi, S. (2014) These are the days of lasers in the jungle. Carbon Balance and Management, 9: 1-3.
Schnitzer, S.A., van der Heijden, G.M.F., Mascaro, J. and Carson, W.P. (2014) Lianas in gaps reduce carbon accumulation in a tropical forest. Ecology, 95: 3008-3017.
Mascaro, J., Asner, G.P, Knapp, D.E., Kennedy-Bowdoin, T., Martin, R.E., Anderson, C., Higgins, H. and Chadwick, K.D. (2014) A tale of two “forests”: Random Forest machine learning aids tropical forest carbon mapping. PLoSONE, 9: e85993.
Asner, G.P. and Mascaro, J. Mapping tropical forest carbon: calibrating plot estimates to a simple LiDAR metric. (2014) Remote Sensing of Environment, 140: 614-624.
Mascaro, J., Litton, C.M., Hughes, R.F., Uowolo, A. and Schnitzer, S.A. (2014) Is logarithmic transformation necessary in allometry? Ten, one-hundred, one-thousand times yes. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 111: 230-233.
Mascaro, J., Hughes, R.F. and Schnitzer, S.A. (2012) Novel forests maintain ecosystem processes after the decline of native tree species. Ecological Monographs, 82: 221-238.
Asner, G.P., Mascaro, J., Muller-Landau, H.C., Vieilledent, G., Vaudry, R., Rasamoelina, M., Hall, J. and van Breugel, M. (2012) A universal airborne LiDAR approach for tropical forest carbon mapping. Oecologia, 168: 1147-1160.
Davis, M.A., Chew, M.K., Hobbs, R.J., Lugo, A.E., Ewel, J.J., Vermeij, G.J., Brown, J.H., Rosenzweig, M.L., Gardener, M.R., Carroll, S.P., Thompson, K., Pickett, S.T.A., Stromberg, J.C., Del Tredici, P., Suding, K.N., Ehrenfeld, J.G., Grime, J.P., Mascaro, J. and Briggs, J.C. (2011) Don’t judge species on their origins. Nature, 474: 152-153.
Mascaro, J., Detto, M., Asner, G.P. and Muller-Landau, H.C. (2011) Evaluating uncertainty in mapping forest carbon with airborne LiDAR. Remote Sensing of Environment, 115: 3770-3774.
Mascaro, J., Asner, G.P., Muller-Landau, H.C., van Breugel, H., Hall, J. and Dahlin, K. (2011) Controls over aboveground carbon density on Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Biogeosciences, 8: 1615- 1629.
Mascaro, J. (2011) Eighty years of succession in a non-commercial planting on Hawai‘i Island: are native species returning? Pacific Science, 65: 1-15.
Asner, G.P., Powell, G., Mascaro, J., Knapp, D.E., Jacobson, J., Kennedy-Bowdoin, T., Clark, J., Balaji, A., Secada, L., and Hughes, R.F. (2010) High-resolution carbon stocks and emissions in the Amazon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107: 16738-16742.
Mascaro, J., Becklund, K.K., Hughes R.F. and Schnitzer, S.A. (2008) Limited native plant regeneration in novel, exotic-dominated forests on Hawai‘i. Forest Ecology and Management, 256: 593-606.
Mascaro, J., Schnitzer S.A. and Carson, W.P. (2004) Liana diversity, abundance, and mortality in a tropical wet forest in Costa Rica. Forest Ecology and Management, 190: 3-14.
Book Chapters
Mascaro, J., Harris, J., Lach, L., Thompson, A., Perring, M., Richardson, D.M. and Ellis, E. (2013) Origins of the novel ecosystems concept. In, Hobbs, R., Higgs, E. and Hall, C. (eds.) Novel Ecosystems: When to Intervene in the New Ecological World Order. Wiley.
Mascaro, J. (2013) From rivets to rivers.In, Hobbs, R., Higgs, E. and Hall, C. (eds.) Novel Ecosystems: When to Intervene in the New Ecological World Order. Wiley.
Other Publications
Mascaro, J. (2016) To save Earth, go to Mars. Aeon Magazine. 11 May 2016.
Mascaro, J. (2015) Earth Makers. The Breakthrough Journal: 5.
Mascaro, J. (2013) Dear UCSF: Sutro Forest is off-limits. San Francisco Chronicle. 23 February 2013.
Mascaro, J. (2011) Earth Similarity Index provides a logical breakpoint for naming planets. Astrobiology, 11: 1053
Marris, E., Kareiva, P., Mascaro, J. and Ellis, E.C. (2011) Hope in the age of man. The New York Times. 7 December 2011.
Mascaro, J. (2010) Fly me to HD 10180g. Los Angeles Times. 26 September 2010.