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Dr. Nathan Marc Thomas

Photo of NATHAN THOMAS

Dr. Nathan Marc Thomas

  • POSTDOC RESEARCHER
  • 301.614.6691
  • NASA/GSFC
  • Mail Code: 618
  • Greenbelt , MD 20771
  • Employer: UNIV OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK

    • Brief Bio

    Nathan graduated with a BSc in 2011 and MSc in 2012 from Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. He remained at the institution to acquire his PhD in remote sensing in 2016. Nathan was a PostDoc at the CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2016 through 2017 before taking up a PostDoc at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he now works as a University of Maryland Assistant Research Scientist.


    Nathan's research interest is focused on the remote sensing of land cover type, extent and change in order to understand its relationship with ecosystem function, biomass and carbon. He is interested in processing big datasets to generate country- and global-scale products so that they can play a role in policy design and implementation. To facilitate this, he uses and develops open source software within the remote sensing community to conduct data calibration, classification, processing and statistical analysis, including distributed computing and machine learning.

    Positions/Employment

    1/2016 - 12/2017

    PostDoc

    California Institute of Technology/JPL, Pasadena, CA
    12/2017 - 12/2020

    PostDoc

    University of Maryland/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
    1/2021 - Present

    Assistant Research Scientist

    University of Maryland/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

    Selected Publications

    Refereed

    Thomas, N., A. P. Pertiwi, D. Traganos, et al. D. Lagomasino, D. Poursanidis, S. Moreno, and L. Fatoyinbo. 2021. "Space‐Borne Cloud‐Native Satellite‐Derived Bathymetry (SDB) Models Using ICESat‐2 And Sentinel‐2." Geophysical Research Letters, 48 (6): [10.1029/2020gl092170]

    Silva, C. A., L. Duncanson, S. Hancock, et al. A. Neuenschwander, N. Thomas, M. Hofton, L. Fatoyinbo, M. Simard, C. Z. Marshak, J. Armston, S. Luthcke, and R. Dubayah. 2021. "Fusing simulated GEDI, ICESat-2 and NISAR data for regional aboveground biomass mapping." Remote Sensing of Environment, 253: 112234 [10.1016/j.rse.2020.112234]

    Liu, X., T. E. Fatoyinbo, N. M. Thomas, et al. W. W. Guan, Y. Zhan, P. Mondal, D. Lagomasino, M. Simard, C. C. Trettin, R. Deo, and A. Barenblitt. 2021. "Large-Scale High-Resolution Coastal Mangrove Forests Mapping Across West Africa With Machine Learning Ensemble and Satellite Big Data." Frontiers in Earth Science, 8: [10.3389/feart.2020.560933]

    Thomas, N., C. S. Neigh, M. L. Carroll, J. L. McCarty, and P. Bunting. 2020. "Fusion Approach for Remotely-Sensed Mapping of Agriculture (FARMA): A Scalable Open Source Method for Land Cover Monitoring Using Data Fusion." Remote Sensing, 12 (20): 3459 [10.3390/rs12203459]

    Goldberg, L., D. Lagomasino, N. Thomas, and T. Fatoyinbo. 2020. "Global declines in human‐driven mangrove loss." Global Change Biology, 26 (10): 5844-5855 [10.1111/gcb.15275]

    Byrd, K. B., L. Ballanti, N. Thomas, et al. D. Nguyen, J. R. Holmquist, M. Simard, and L. Windham-Myers. 2020. "Corrigendum to “A remote sensing-based model of tidal marsh aboveground carbon stocks for the conterminous United States” [ISPRS J. Photogram. Rem. Sens. 139 (2018) 255–271]." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 166: 63-67 [10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2020.05.005]

    Duncanson, L. I., A. Neuenschwander, S. Hancock, et al. N. M. Thomas, L. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, M. Simard, C. A. Silva, J. Armston, S. B. Luthcke, M. A. Hofton, J. R. Kellner, and R. Dubayah. 2020. "Biomass estimation from simulated GEDI, ICESat-2 and NISAR across environmental gradients in Sonoma County, California." Remote Sensing of Environment, 242: 111779 [10.1016/j.rse.2020.111779]

    Worthington, T. A., D. A. Andradi-Brown, R. Bhargava, et al. C. Buelow, P. Bunting, C. Duncan, L. Fatoyinbo, D. A. Friess, L. Goldberg, L. Hilarides, D. Lagomasino, E. Landis, K. Longley-Wood, C. E. Lovelock, N. J. Murray, S. Narayan, A. Rosenqvist, M. Sievers, M. Simard, N. Thomas, P. van Eijk, C. Zganjar, and M. Spalding. 2020. "Harnessing Big Data to Support the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Mangrove Forests Globally." One Earth, 2 (5): 429-443 [10.1016/j.oneear.2020.04.018]

    Neigh, C. S., N. M. Thomas, M. Carroll, M. Wooten, and J. L. Mccarty-Kern. 2020. "A multi-modal approach for monitoring changes in agriculture in the Mekong River delta." Proceedings of IEEE IGARSS 2020, [10.1109/IGARSS39084.2020.9324083]

    Thomas, N., M. Simard, E. Casta~neda-Moya, et al. K. Byrd, L. Windham-Myers, A. Bevington, and R. R. Twilley. 2019. "High-resolution mapping of biomass and distribution of marsh and forested wetlands in southeastern coastal Louisiana." International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 80: 257--267 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.03.013]

    Simard, M., T. Fatoyinbo, C. Smetanka, et al. V. H. Rivera-Monroy, E. Castañeda-Moya, N. Thomas, and T. Van der Stocken. 2018. "Mangrove canopy height globally related to precipitation, temperature and cyclone frequency." Nature Geoscience, 12 (1): 40-45 [10.1038/s41561-018-0279-1]

    Bunting, P., A. Rosenqvist, R. M. Lucas, et al. L.-M. Rebelo, L. Hilarides, N. Thomas, A. Hardy, T. Itoh, M. Shimada, and C. M. Finlayson. 2018. "The global mangrove watch—a new 2010 global baseline of mangrove extent." Remote Sensing, 10 (10): 1669 [https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10101669]

    Thomas, N., P. Bunting, R. Lucas, et al. A. Hardy, A. Rosenqvist, and T. Fatoyinbo. 2018. "Mapping Mangrove Extent and Change: A Globally Applicable Approach." Remote Sensing, 10 (9): 1466 [10.3390/rs10091466]

    Byrd, K. B., L. Ballanti, N. Thomas, et al. D. Nguyen, J. R. Holmquist, M. Simard, and L. Windham-Myers. 2018. "A remote sensing-based model of tidal marsh aboveground carbon stocks for the conterminous United States." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 139: 255--271 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2018.03.019]

    Lucas, R., A. V. Lule, M. T. Rodríguez, et al. M. Kamal, N. Thomas, E. Asbridge, and C. Kuenzer. 2017. "Spatial Ecology of Mangrove Forests: A Remote Sensing Perspective." Mangrove Ecosystems: A Global Biogeographic Perspective, 87-112 [10.1007/978-3-319-62206-4_4]

    Thomas, N., R. Lucas, P. Bunting, et al. A. Hardy, A. Rosenqvist, and M. Simard. 2017. "Distribution and drivers of global mangrove forest change, 1996--2010." PloS one, 12 (6): [https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0179302]

    Thomas, N., R. Lucas, T. Itoh, et al. M. Simard, T. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, P. Bunting, and A. Rosenqvist. 2014. "An approach to monitoring mangrove extents through time-series comparison of JERS-1 SAR and ALOS PALSAR data." Wetlands Ecology and Management, 1-15 [10.1007/s11273-014-9370-6]

    Lucas, R., L.-M. Rebelo, L. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, et al. A. Rosenqvist, T. Itoh, M. Shimada, M. Simard, P. W. Souza-Filho, N. Thomas, C. Trettin, A. Accad, J. Carreiras, and L. Hilarides. 2014. "Contribution of L-band SAR to systematic global mangrove monitoring." Marine and Freshwater Research, 65 (7): 589–603 [10.1071/MF13177 ]

    Teaching Experience

    2020 Isamar Cortes, NASA Graduate Fellow

    2018 Shrabanti Hira, Bangladesh Forest Department,Urban Forestry Inventory of Dhaka City

    2018 Salit Chakma, Bangladesh Forest Department,Environmental Consequence of Refugee Crises

    2017-2018 Priscilla Baltezar, University of Maryland, SilvaCarbon Bangladesh


    2019 University of Maryland. Invited undergraduate lecture: "Plate Tectonics and indent Geo-hazards

    2014 – 2015 Aberystwyth University, Undergraduate Academic Tutor

    2012 – 2015 Undergraduate/Masters laboratory assistant, Aberystwyth University

    Education

    PhD Remote Sensing 2016, Aberystwyth University, UK


    MSc Remote Sensing with Geography 2012, Aberystwyth University, UK


    BSc Geography 2011, Aberystwyth University, UK

    Professional Societies

    Royal Geographical Society, 2019 - Present
    Fellow

    Awards

    PLoS One: Top 10% cited paper in 2017: Thomas et al (2017) Distribution and Drivers of Global Mangrove Forest Change, 1996-2010

    Grants

    The Impact of Investment on Irrigated Rice, Dryland Agriculture and Afforestation in Senegal using SAR and Optical Time-Series Imagery in Data Fusion Approaches, NASA Land Cover Land Use Change
    Co-I
    Global Hotspots of Change in Mangrove Forests, NASA Land Cover Land Use Change
    Co-I
    Using ICESat-2 for Coastal Ecosystem Structure, NASA ICESat-2
    Co-I

    Brief Bio

    Nathan graduated with a BSc in 2011 and MSc in 2012 from Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK. He remained at the institution to acquire his PhD in remote sensing in 2016. Nathan was a PostDoc at the CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 2016 through 2017 before taking up a PostDoc at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he now works as a University of Maryland Assistant Research Scientist.


    Nathan's research interest is focused on the remote sensing of land cover type, extent and change in order to understand its relationship with ecosystem function, biomass and carbon. He is interested in processing big datasets to generate country- and global-scale products so that they can play a role in policy design and implementation. To facilitate this, he uses and develops open source software within the remote sensing community to conduct data calibration, classification, processing and statistical analysis, including distributed computing and machine learning.

    Selected Publications

    Refereed

    Thomas, N., A. P. Pertiwi, D. Traganos, et al. D. Lagomasino, D. Poursanidis, S. Moreno, and L. Fatoyinbo. 2021. "Space‐Borne Cloud‐Native Satellite‐Derived Bathymetry (SDB) Models Using ICESat‐2 And Sentinel‐2." Geophysical Research Letters 48 (6): [10.1029/2020gl092170]

    Silva, C. A., L. Duncanson, S. Hancock, et al. A. Neuenschwander, N. Thomas, M. Hofton, L. Fatoyinbo, M. Simard, C. Z. Marshak, J. Armston, S. Luthcke, and R. Dubayah. 2021. "Fusing simulated GEDI, ICESat-2 and NISAR data for regional aboveground biomass mapping." Remote Sensing of Environment 253 112234 [10.1016/j.rse.2020.112234]

    Liu, X., T. E. Fatoyinbo, N. M. Thomas, et al. W. W. Guan, Y. Zhan, P. Mondal, D. Lagomasino, M. Simard, C. C. Trettin, R. Deo, and A. Barenblitt. 2021. "Large-Scale High-Resolution Coastal Mangrove Forests Mapping Across West Africa With Machine Learning Ensemble and Satellite Big Data." Frontiers in Earth Science 8 [10.3389/feart.2020.560933]

    Thomas, N., C. S. Neigh, M. L. Carroll, J. L. McCarty, and P. Bunting. 2020. "Fusion Approach for Remotely-Sensed Mapping of Agriculture (FARMA): A Scalable Open Source Method for Land Cover Monitoring Using Data Fusion." Remote Sensing 12 (20): 3459 [10.3390/rs12203459]

    Goldberg, L., D. Lagomasino, N. Thomas, and T. Fatoyinbo. 2020. "Global declines in human‐driven mangrove loss." Global Change Biology 26 (10): 5844-5855 [10.1111/gcb.15275]

    Byrd, K. B., L. Ballanti, N. Thomas, et al. D. Nguyen, J. R. Holmquist, M. Simard, and L. Windham-Myers. 2020. "Corrigendum to “A remote sensing-based model of tidal marsh aboveground carbon stocks for the conterminous United States” [ISPRS J. Photogram. Rem. Sens. 139 (2018) 255–271]." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 166 63-67 [10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2020.05.005]

    Duncanson, L. I., A. Neuenschwander, S. Hancock, et al. N. M. Thomas, L. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, M. Simard, C. A. Silva, J. Armston, S. B. Luthcke, M. A. Hofton, J. R. Kellner, and R. Dubayah. 2020. "Biomass estimation from simulated GEDI, ICESat-2 and NISAR across environmental gradients in Sonoma County, California." Remote Sensing of Environment 242 111779 [10.1016/j.rse.2020.111779]

    Worthington, T. A., D. A. Andradi-Brown, R. Bhargava, et al. C. Buelow, P. Bunting, C. Duncan, L. Fatoyinbo, D. A. Friess, L. Goldberg, L. Hilarides, D. Lagomasino, E. Landis, K. Longley-Wood, C. E. Lovelock, N. J. Murray, S. Narayan, A. Rosenqvist, M. Sievers, M. Simard, N. Thomas, P. van Eijk, C. Zganjar, and M. Spalding. 2020. "Harnessing Big Data to Support the Conservation and Rehabilitation of Mangrove Forests Globally." One Earth 2 (5): 429-443 [10.1016/j.oneear.2020.04.018]

    Neigh, C. S., N. M. Thomas, M. Carroll, M. Wooten, and J. L. Mccarty-Kern. 2020. "A multi-modal approach for monitoring changes in agriculture in the Mekong River delta." Proceedings of IEEE IGARSS 2020 [10.1109/IGARSS39084.2020.9324083]

    Thomas, N., M. Simard, E. Casta~neda-Moya, et al. K. Byrd, L. Windham-Myers, A. Bevington, and R. R. Twilley. 2019. "High-resolution mapping of biomass and distribution of marsh and forested wetlands in southeastern coastal Louisiana." International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 80 257--267 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jag.2019.03.013]

    Simard, M., T. Fatoyinbo, C. Smetanka, et al. V. H. Rivera-Monroy, E. Castañeda-Moya, N. Thomas, and T. Van der Stocken. 2018. "Mangrove canopy height globally related to precipitation, temperature and cyclone frequency." Nature Geoscience 12 (1): 40-45 [10.1038/s41561-018-0279-1]

    Bunting, P., A. Rosenqvist, R. M. Lucas, et al. L.-M. Rebelo, L. Hilarides, N. Thomas, A. Hardy, T. Itoh, M. Shimada, and C. M. Finlayson. 2018. "The global mangrove watch—a new 2010 global baseline of mangrove extent." Remote Sensing 10 (10): 1669 [https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10101669]

    Thomas, N., P. Bunting, R. Lucas, et al. A. Hardy, A. Rosenqvist, and T. Fatoyinbo. 2018. "Mapping Mangrove Extent and Change: A Globally Applicable Approach." Remote Sensing 10 (9): 1466 [10.3390/rs10091466]

    Byrd, K. B., L. Ballanti, N. Thomas, et al. D. Nguyen, J. R. Holmquist, M. Simard, and L. Windham-Myers. 2018. "A remote sensing-based model of tidal marsh aboveground carbon stocks for the conterminous United States." ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 139 255--271 [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2018.03.019]

    Lucas, R., A. V. Lule, M. T. Rodríguez, et al. M. Kamal, N. Thomas, E. Asbridge, and C. Kuenzer. 2017. "Spatial Ecology of Mangrove Forests: A Remote Sensing Perspective." Mangrove Ecosystems: A Global Biogeographic Perspective 87-112 [10.1007/978-3-319-62206-4_4]

    Thomas, N., R. Lucas, P. Bunting, et al. A. Hardy, A. Rosenqvist, and M. Simard. 2017. "Distribution and drivers of global mangrove forest change, 1996--2010." PloS one 12 (6): [https://doi.org/ 10.1371/journal.pone.0179302]

    Thomas, N., R. Lucas, T. Itoh, et al. M. Simard, T. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, P. Bunting, and A. Rosenqvist. 2014. "An approach to monitoring mangrove extents through time-series comparison of JERS-1 SAR and ALOS PALSAR data." Wetlands Ecology and Management 1-15 [10.1007/s11273-014-9370-6]

    Lucas, R., L.-M. Rebelo, L. E. Fatoyinbo Agueh, et al. A. Rosenqvist, T. Itoh, M. Shimada, M. Simard, P. W. Souza-Filho, N. Thomas, C. Trettin, A. Accad, J. Carreiras, and L. Hilarides. 2014. "Contribution of L-band SAR to systematic global mangrove monitoring." Marine and Freshwater Research 65 (7): 589–603 [10.1071/MF13177 ]

                                                                                                                                                                                            
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    • Last Updated: 06/02/2023