AOSC Seminar by Dr. Elodie Macorps, 09/04/2025
AOSC Seminar
Elodie Macorps
NASA GSFC
Title
Leveraging Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Optical Remote Sensing to Monitor Earth’s Changing Surface from Disasters
Abstract
Our planet's surface is constantly changing, shaped by both slow geological processes and sudden, dramatic events like volcanic eruptions, wildfires, and floods to name a few. Effectively understanding and responding to these changes requires rapid, accurate, and comprdhensive information. This presentation will explore how cutting-edge satellite technology is revolutionizing our approach to monitoring these dynamic processes. We'll delve into the foundational principles of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Optical imaging. While optical satellites provide a familiar, "camera-like" view of Earth's surface, SAR satellites actively send out their own signals to penetrate clouds and darkness, providing an unparalleled, all-weather view of ground deformation and surface characteristics.
I will give an overview of the newly launched NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite, a joint mission between US and India, which will provide the largest amount of open science SAR data and observe the Earth with unprecedented details. We will explore together the range of potential applications that NISAR will be able to cover. I will also cover the OPERA (Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis) project, which is creating user-friendly, analysis-ready data products by integrating measurements from multiple SAR and optical satellites, including Sentinel-1 and Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS) data. Finally, diving a little bit into my team’s research projects, I will illustrate the complementary strengths of SAR and optical data to map volcanic flows, wildfire burn scars, and floods using some recent events as case studies.
Bio
Dr. Elodie [el-oh-dee] Macorps is an Assistant Research Scientist with the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) at the University of Maryland, working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She applies remote sensing techniques to detect earth surface changes from disasters and environmental phenomena. Her research projects are focused on leveraging multi-sensor capabilities (Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), optical and lidar) to improve the detection of disasters’ impacted areas and the tracking of land deformation and topographic changes – with a primary focus on volcanic eruptions, wildfires and floods. Elodie’s research goals are geared towards the integration of Earth observations into machine learning tools and data pipelines to be utilized by public and private organizations’ decision-making and services.
Beyond her applied research work, Elodie is the Mission Applications Lead for the NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) Mission and the Stakeholder Engagement Program Lead of the Observational Products for End-Users from Remote Sensing Analysis (OPERA) project. In these roles, Elodie work as a liaison between stakeholders and the mission or project science teams to guide the development of value-added data and tools that are best suited for the end-users’ needs. She also applies this expertise with the Satellite Needs Working Group (SNWG) to capture high-priority satellite data needs across the federal government, assist in the selection of new solutions and help make NASA data more actionable.
Elodie was a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow from 2021 – 2023 at NASA Goddard after graduating with a Ph.D. in Volcanology from the University of South Florida (Tampa, FL) in 2021. Her dissertation focused on studying volcanic flows in Central and South America using a combination of fieldwork and remote sensing data for hazard assessment and crisis management. Elodie received the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF), which allowed her to join the Biospheric Sciences Lab at NASA Goddard as a Student Researcher Collaborator from 2018 to 2021. In 2015, Elodie completed her M.Sc. in Volcanology and Geotechniques with courses and research time split between the University of Buffalo (NY) and Université Blaise Pascal de Clermont-Ferrand (France), and her B.Sc. in Geology and Geophysics at Université de Nantes in France, where she was born and raised.
Contact
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AOSC Seminar
Pre-seminar refreshment: N/A
Seminar: 3:30-4:30pm, Room: ATL 2400(only when in-person)
Meet-the-Speaker: 4:30-5:00pm, Room: ATL 3400(only when in-person) [For AOSC Students only]
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