Mengyu Liang (Amber)

§ Current Appointment

Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, 2024 - Present

Supervisor: Dr. Chris Field

§ Education

University of Maryland, College Park, USA, August 2019 - May 2024

PhD, Department of Geographical Sciences

Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany, October 2017 - August 2019

MSc, International Cartography M.Sc. Program

University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), Madison, USA, September 2013 - May 2017

BSc with Honors, Geography, Cartography/Geographic Information System (GIS)

§ Publication

Peer-reviewed Publications

• Zhu, X., Luleva, M., Gou, Y. and Liang, M., 2026. Mapping agroforestry Above-Ground Biomass using GEDI structural traits and Sentinel-ALOS-2 PALSAR-2 multisensor fusion. Science of Remote Sensing, p.100477.
• Heinrich, V., Holcomb, A., Besnard, S., et al. (incl. Liang, M.). Science Advances, 12(27), p.eadz1923.
• Liang, M., Hakkenberg, C., Villa, L.M., Duncanson, L. and Field, C.B., 2025. Comparing the spatial effects and longevity of key fuel treatments in California using spaceborne lidar data. Journal of Environmental Management, 396, p.128044.
• Demol, M., Amuchastegui, N., Bernotaite, G., et al. (incl. Liang, M.), 2024. Multi-scale lidar measurements suggest miombo woodlands contain substantially more carbon than thought. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(1), p.366.
• Hunka, N., Santoro, M., Armston, J., et al. (incl. Liang, M.), 2023. On the NASA GEDI and ESA CCI biomass maps: Aligning for uptake in the UNFCCC Global Stocktake. Environmental Research Letters, 8(12), p.124042.
• Duncanson, L., Liang, M., Leitold, V., Armston, J., Moorthy, S.M., Dubayah, R., Costedoat, S., Enquist, B., Fatoyinbo, L., Goetz, S. and Gonzalez-Roglich, M., 2023. The Effectiveness of Global Protected Areas for Climate Change Mitigation. Nature Communications, 14, 2908.
• Liang, M., Duncanson, L., Silva, J.A. and Sedano, F., 2023. Quantifying aboveground biomass dynamics from charcoal degradation in Mozambique using GEDI Lidar and Landsat. Remote Sensing of Environment, 284, p.113367.
• Liang, M., González-Roglich, M., Roehrdanz, P., Tabor, K., Zvoleff, A., Leitold, V., Silva, J., Fatoyinbo, T., Hansen, M. and Duncanson, L., 2023. Assessing protected area's carbon stocks and ecological structure at regional-scale using GEDI lidar. Global Environmental Change, 78, p.102621.
• Sedano, F., Mizu-Siampale, A., Duncanson, L. and Liang, M., 2022. Influence of Charcoal Production on Forest Degradation in Zambia: A Remote Sensing Perspective. Remote Sensing, 14(14), p.3352.
• Liang, M., Pause, M., Prechtel, N. and Schramm, M., 2020. Regionalization of coarse scale soil moisture products using fine-scale vegetation indices—Prospects and case study. Remote Sensing, 12(3), p.551.
• Kasmerchak, C.S., Mason, J.A. and Liang, M., 2019. Laser diffraction analysis of aggregate stability and disintegration in forest and grassland soils of northern Minnesota, USA. Geoderma, 338, pp.430-444.

Publications in Progress

• Liang, M., Minor, D., Silva, J., Fatoyinbo, L., et al., 2026. Climate Mitigation Benefits of Forest Restoration Increase Over Time in East Africa. (In Review, Nature Communications)
• Liang, M. and Wüpper, D., 2026. From Proxies to Assessments: Using Earth Observation Products for Credible Policy Evaluation. (In Review, Review of Environmental Economics and Policy)
• Liang, M., Higuera-Mendieta, I., Deng, C., Balch, J., Wu, X., Nolan, C. and Field, C., 2026. Wildfire Behaviors in Response to Fuel Treatment in California. (In Preparation)
• Barenblitt, A., Liang, M., Leitold, V., et al., 2026. If a tree is "Protected", is it? Using satellite-borne LiDAR to understand efficacy of protection status in West and Central African Protected Areas. (In Review, Nature Communications)
• Leitold, V., Liang, M., Keller, M., et al., 2026. Assessing the forest structure and carbon benefits of Indigenous landscapes in Brazil with GEDI: implications for conservation and climate. (In Review, Earth's Future)
• Qin, Z., Liu, L., Liang, M., Nolan, C., Cabiyo, B. and Field, C., 2026. Integrating Process-Based Modeling and GEDI with Knowledge-Guided Machine Learning to Reconstruct Continuous Forest Biomass-Age Trajectories. (In Review, Remote Sensing of Environment)

Other Publications

• Ma, Y., Yang, J., Liang, M., Higuera-Mendieta, I. and Chen, M., 2026. Earth Embedding: Theory, Products, and Applications. In Fundamentals of Next-Generation Remote Sensing (Huang, X., Weng, Q., Sertel, E. and Im, J., eds.). (In review)
• Liang, M., 2025. Case study in IUCN-WCPA report Enhancing Climate Change Mitigation in Protected Areas. World Conservation Congress, Abu Dhabi.
• Liang, M., 2024. Monitoring Aboveground Biomass in Forest Conservation and Restoration Areas Using GEDI and Optical Data Fusion (Doctoral Dissertation).
• Duncanson, L., Dubayah, R., Armston, J., Liang, M., Arthur, A. and Minor, D., 2020. CMS: LiDAR Biomass Improved for High Biomass Forests, Sonoma County, CA, USA, 2013. ORNLDAAC.
• Liang, M., 2019. Analyzing and Visualizing the Relationships between Vegetation Traits and Soil Moisture in Wetland Environment from Remote Sensing Data (Master's Thesis).
• Liang, M., 2017. Interaction of Human Settlement, Vegetation Patterns and Soils in the Northern Minnesota Prairie-Forest Region from the Euro-American Settlement Era to Present (Honors Thesis).
• Mason, J., Kasmerchak, C., Keita, H., Liang, M. and Gruley, K., 2016. Effects of Holocene vegetation change on soils across the forest-grassland transition, northern Minnesota, and implications for erosion processes. EGUGA, pp. EPSC2016-5275.

§ Honors and Grants

Grants and Fellowships

1. Stanford Impact Lab Postdoctoral Fellowship, for solution-oriented social science (2025-26)
2. Seed Funding in Environmental Social Science, fuel treatment effectiveness ($41k), Stanford — primary proposal writer, awarded to PI Chris Field (2025-26)
3. Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST): 3-year PhD fellowship/training grant ($134,271), NASA (2021-24)
4. Dean's Research Initiative, College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, UMD ($1,500) (2020)
5. College of Letters & Science Senior Thesis Research Grant, UW-Madison ($3k) (2016)
6. Welton Summer Sophomore Research Apprenticeship Grant, UW-Madison ($3k) (2014)

Awards and Honors

1. Outstanding Graduate Research Assistance, Department of Geographical Sciences, UMD (2024)
2. Excellence in Graduate Research Award, 1st Place, Department of Geographical Sciences, UMD (2023)
3. Three-Minute Thesis Competition, college & university-wide final winner, UMD (2023)
4. Graduate Student Appreciation Award for outstanding service, Department of Geographical Sciences, UMD (2021)
5. O.E. Baker Award for outstanding graduate academic and service, UMD (2021)
6. Study Completion Scholarship, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (2019)
7. Geo4Women Award for successful research proposal and summer internship, Vienna University of Technology (2018)
8. Olmstead Achievement Award, Department of Geography, UW-Madison (2017)
9. Kohn Award for summer research, Department of Geography, UW-Madison (2016)
10. Cartography Lab Annual Design Challenge Honorable Mention, UW-Madison (2016)
11. College of Letters and Science Honors Program, UW-Madison (2014-17)
12. Dean’s List, UW-Madison (2013-17)

§ Research Experience

Postdoctoral Fellow, Woods Institute, Stanford University, Summer 2024 - Present

1. Lead research projects assessing fuel treatment effectiveness for wildfire mitigation using Earth observation data and causal inference analysis
2. Conduct policy research on enhancing Voluntary Carbon Market integrity with EO-based direct biomass product intake
3. Facilitate stakeholder engagement events for the Natural Climate Solutions (NCS) initiative at the Woods Institute
4. Mentor graduate and undergraduate students; grant writing

FINESST Fellow, NASA, Fall 2021 - Spring 2024

1. Obtained a competitive national research fellowship
2. Developed remote sensing techniques to fill spatial and temporal gaps in forest carbon data from GEDI lidar
3. Integrated econometric methods to assess conservation and restoration effectiveness
4. Established collaborations with several NGOs and local communities for validation data collection

Graduate Research Assistant, UMD, Fall 2019 - Spring 2024

Investigated the accuracy of data products on forest structure and biomass from NASA's spaceborne lidar missions, GEDI and ICESat-2, and developed new methods and algorithms for terrestrial ecology applications.

1. Project 1 — GEDI Level 4A model and product improvement: collaborated with the GEDI Science Team to develop statistical models for footprint-level aboveground biomass density estimates, assessed the input datasets used for model calibration/validation, and compared model performance for the next GEDI Level 4A release
2. Project 2 — Global protected areas carbon effectiveness assessment: developed a scalable framework for assessing forest conservation's ecological and climatic impact at national and global scales using GEDI data and counterfactual analysis
3. Project 3 — Quantification of carbon loss from forest degradation: investigated GEDI and ICESat-2 for subtle forest disturbance detection and developed a lidar-optical data fusion methodology for mapping forest carbon dynamics

Master’s Thesis Research, Technical University of Dresden, Fall 2018 - Summer 2019

1. Analyzed relationships between vegetation traits from Sentinel-2 imagery and soil moisture from ASCAT microwave data
2. Published research results in a remote sensing journal
3. Programmed an interactive map used by students in a remote sensing course

Geo4Women Researcher, Vienna University of Technology, Summer 2018

1. Designed and acquired funding for a research project combining in-situ water level monitoring and ESA Copernicus satellite data
2. Analyzed time-delay responses of vegetation, soil moisture, and flooding in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

Research Assistant, Chair of Remote Sensing Technology, TUM, Spring 2018

1. Investigated data fusion methods linking high-resolution UNOSAT disaster assessment data with medium-resolution Sentinel-2 imagery using Google Earth Engine

Senior Honors Thesis Research, Department of Geography, UW-Madison, Fall 2016 - Spring 2017

1. Analyzed land cover/land use change by processing historical aerial imagery from the 1930s and 2015 for northern Minnesota
2. Interpreted 19th-century land survey notes and plat maps to reconstruct pre-settlement vegetation patterns
3. Integrated multi-source soil survey data and agricultural statistics to analyze human impact on forest-prairie ecotone dynamics

Research Assistant, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, UW-Madison, Fall 2016 - Spring 2017

1. Programmed Python tools to extract large geocoded datasets of agricultural practices from web-based APIs
2. Collaborated with faculty and students in applied economics to analyze data and build models on agricultural technology adoption

Research Assistant, Geomorphology Lab, UW-Madison, Summer 2014 - Spring 2016

1. Conducted laboratory experiments measuring soil aggregate size, organic matter, and clay content
2. Analyzed stable carbon isotope composition of soil samples
3. Designed methodology and acquired funding for senior honors thesis project

§ Teaching Experience

Mentorship

1. Sustainability, Engineering and Science - Undergraduate Research (SESUR) Fellowship Program, Stanford (Summer 2026): mentored an undergraduate student in securing a SESUR Fellowship for a project on deep-learning methods for operational 3D fuel mapping in California forests
2. BioBUDS Undergraduate Research Internship, Stanford (Spring 2025): mentored an indigenous undergraduate student in interdisciplinary research project design and technical skills (remote sensing, GIS, cartographic visualization)
3. Graduate Peer Mentorship, Department of Geographical Sciences, UMD (Fall 2022, 2023): co-developed a departmental peer mentoring program and served as peer mentor to three PhD students

Instructor

1. SCI 93 Seeing Earth from Space: How Satellites Reveal a Changing Planet, Stanford Continuing Studies (Winter 2026, upcoming): proposed and developed a new course for a diverse public audience integrating remote sensing fundamentals, environmental applications, and hands-on use of open-access NASA Earth observation data

Guest Lecturer

1. GEOG 172 Earth from Space, UMD (Summer 2022 and Spring 2023): designed course materials on lidar and SAR remote sensing for classes of 100+ and 200+ students
2. GEOG 272 Introduction to Earth Observation Science, UMD (Fall 2023): designed and delivered material on multi-source remote sensing and data fusion for a class of 50+ students

Graduate Teaching Assistant

1. GEOG 201 Geography of Environmental Systems, UMD (Fall 2019 - Fall 2020): graded and proctored exams, supported course management for 200+ students, and assisted with the online course transition during COVID-19
2. GEOG 471 Technologies for Computational Earth Observations, UMD (Summer 2020): prepared multi-source remote sensing datasets and developed a Python/Jupyter workflow for lab sessions

Academic Coach

1. Cartography and GIS, Division of Diversity, Equity & Education Achievement, UW-Madison (Spring - Fall 2015): designed tutoring materials tailored to first-generation students' academic needs

§ Service and Activities

1. Science for High Integrity Frameworks to Transform Carbon Markets (SHIFT-CM) Committee (Summer 2026 - present): coordinator on the SHIFT-CM Steering Committee, connecting SHIFT-CM (led by Yale and The Nature Conservancy) with Stanford's Natural Climate Solutions Initiative
2. AGU Global Environmental Change Session Convener (Winter 2026, upcoming): co-organized a session on sustainable forest management under a changing climate
3. Summer Field Team Lead, Blodgett Forest, California (Summer 2026): led a 7-member, multi-institutional field team collecting mobile laser scanning data across 20 Sierra Nevada sites
4. Summer Mentee/Mentor Peer Research Group Lead, Stanford (Summer 2026): organized weekly peer research meetings for 4 undergraduate mentees and 3 mentors
5. Department of Earth System Science (ESS) Seminar Host, Stanford (Spring 2026): invited and hosted Dr. John Armston as an ESS seminar speaker
6. President, Geographic Graduate Student Organization (GGSO), UMD (Fall 2020 - Spring 2021): led committee meetings on graduate student well-being during COVID-19
7. Social Event Coordinator, GGSO, UMD (Fall 2019 - Spring 2020): organized 7 in-person and virtual social events for graduate students and faculty
8. Peer Reviewer: NASA proposal review panels (Summer 2026); journal reviewer for Nature Communications, PNAS, Remote Sensing of Environment, Earth System Science Data, Journal of Environmental Management, Journal of Forestry Research, Carbon Balance and Management, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, Remote Sensing, Scientific Reports, Atmosphere, Sustainability, Forests, Agroforestry Systems, and Discover Geoscience

§ Presentation and Talk

1. December 2026. Evaluating Mechanical and Fire-Based Treatments for Wildfire Growth Reduction in California. American Geophysical Union. San Francisco, California. (Upcoming poster)
2. July 2026. Using Spaceborne Lidar Data to Assess Spatial Effects and Longevity of Fuel Treatment Strategies on Vegetation Structure in California. NASA Biosphere Meeting, College Park, Maryland. (Poster)
3. April 2026. From space to actions: leveraging Earth observation (EO) for sustainable ecosystem management. Quantitative Ecosystem Dynamic Lab, UC Berkeley. (Invited talk)
4. March 2026. Multi-scale lidar for sustainable forest management. Forestry Lunch Seminar, Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, UC Berkeley. (Invited talk)
5. February 2026. From space to actions: leveraging Earth observation (EO) for sustainable ecosystem management. Department of Geography, Ohio State University. (Invited seminar)
6. December 2025. Using spaceborne lidar data to assess the spatial effects and longevity of fuel treatment strategies on vegetation structure in California. American Geophysical Union. New Orleans, Louisiana. (Poster)
7. November 2025. Comparative Assessment of Fuel Treatment Strategies' Effectiveness on Wildfire Mitigation. Earth Lab, CU Boulder. (Invited talk)
8. June 2025. Evidence-based Sustainable Forest Management Leveraging Econometrics and Earth Observation. Institute for Food and Resource Economics (ILR) Land Economics group seminar series. (Invited talk)
9. March 2025. Monitoring Aboveground Biomass in Forest Conservation and Restoration Areas Using GEDI and Optical Data Fusion. Carnegie Institution for Science. (Invited talk)
10. February 2025. Long-term Commitment Critical to Reach Forest Restoration's Climate Mitigation Potential in East Africa. Conservation International Nature Climate Solution Science Lab seminar series. (Invited talk)
11. December 2024. Leveraging Earth Observation Data to Evaluate Long-Term Forest Restoration Impacts in East Africa. American Geophysical Union. Washington, DC. (Oral presentation)
12. December 2024. Quantifying the effectiveness of forest restoration efforts for climate mitigation in East Africa using multi-source remote sensing data. American Geophysical Union. Washington, DC. (Invited poster)
13. July 2024. Current methods using lidar and optical imagery time series for monitoring forest restoration & carbon stock changes in East Africa. Conservation Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Cambridge, UK. (Invited talk)
14. March 2024. Recent advances for using lidar and optical remote sensing for capturing forest recovery associated with restoration efforts in East Africa. Recovery R2D2: Quantifying Regrowth and Recovery from Deforestation and Degradation at Large Scale. German GeoResearch Center (GFZ). Potsdam, Germany. (Invited talk)
15. August 2023. Using GEDI Lidar to assess ecological impacts of forest conservation and restoration. NASA Hyperwall session, Ecological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting. Portland, Oregon. (Invited NASA hyperwall presentation)
16. May 2023. A scalable framework of using GEDI Lidar data to assess protected areas' (PAs) effectiveness in conserving forest carbon stock. Protected and Conserved Areas: Nature-based Climate Solutions workshop by IUCN & WCPA. Virtual. (Invited talk)
17. May 2023. Monitoring forest recovery in long-term forest restoration sites in Uganda using GEDI Lidar and Landsat. NASA CCS Joint Science Workshop. College Park, MD. (Poster presentation)
18. December 2022. Quantifying and Assessing Protected Area's Carbon Sequestration Potential and Ecological Values at a Regional-scale Using GEDI data. American Geophysical Union. Chicago, IL. (Poster presentation)
19. May 2022. Monitoring aboveground biomass dynamics in forest restoration areas using GEDI Lidar and optical data fusion. Living Planet Symposium. Bonn, Germany. (Poster presentation)
20. March 2021. Using GEDI Lidar to assess Protected Area efficacy in conserving forest carbon stocks and tree structure. IALE-North America Annual Meeting. (Oral presentation)
21. April 2020. Quantifying Local-scale Forest Degradation Intensity from Charcoal Production Using a Fusion of GEDI and Landsat Data. European Geosciences Union. (Oral presentation)
22. May 2017. Interaction of Human Settlement, Vegetation Patterns and Soils in the Northern Minnesota Prairie-Forest Region from the Euro-American Settlement Era to Present. Senior Honors Thesis Symposium and Undergraduate Symposium. Madison, WI. (Oral presentation)

§ Programing Skills

Python | R | JavaScript | Google Earth Engine (GEE) | IDL | HTML/CSS | Java

§ Software Skills

QGIS | ArcGIS | Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop | CloudCompare | GitHub | Microsoft Suite

§ Mapping Skills

Web programming | Interactive map design | Big data visualization

§ Language Skills

Chinese (Native) | English (Native fluency) | German (Introductory) | Japanese (Introductory)

§ Interests

Chinese calligraphy | wood-block printing | pottery | running | kayaking | reading