Cibele Hummel do Amaral

I am an Earth and Environment data scientist working at the intersection of ecology, environmental science, remote sensing, and artificial intelligence. My current research focuses on how natural hazards and the environment impact the stability, productivity and service provision of various global ecosystems, including temperate and tropical forests, savannas and wetlands. To achieve this, I integrate multimodal datasets from ground measurements and annotations with observations from drones, aircraft, and satellites (particularly hyperspectral and lidar data, and multispectral and reanalysis time series), utilizing advanced analytics and scalable computing tools.

I study processes across various scales, from individual plants and households to global levels, and over different timeframes. My goal is to generate insights that inform biodiversity conservation, ecosystem adaptive management and restoration, as well as policy and decision-making aimed at enhancing the resilience of complex socio-ecological systems, such as those in wildland–urban interfaces and coastal zones. In addition to addressing critical questions relevant to today's global challenges, I am dedicated to advancing open science by designing and building reproducible, transferable open-source tools that broaden access to cutting-edge analytics and support community-driven solutions.

I hold a B.E. in Forest Engineering, with a focus on community ecology, from the Federal University of Viçosa, and a D.Sc. in Geosciences, specializing in mineral resources and environment, from the University of São Paulo. Throughout my academic and professional journey, I have held a post-doctoral research associate position at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), a faculty position at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), and visiting scholar roles at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC).

Currently, I serve as a Research Scientist and the Analytics Director for the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Impact Lab (ESIIL) and Earth Lab in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder. In addition to advancing my scientific research, I supervise and mentor broad teams while leading the cyberinfrastructure and analytics strategy for ESIIL and Earth Lab. This strategy focuses on designing, building, and integrating advanced reproducible data science, next-generation artificial intelligence, and seamless (back-end and full-stack) cyberinfrastructure tools to support community-driven environmental research and solutions. I also contribute to the community by serving in leadership and advisory roles, including on the ESA Open Science Section leadership committee and the NASA ORNL DAAC users’ working group. Additionally, I regularly participate in scientific committees and serve as guest editor and reviewer for conferences, scientific journals, and funding agencies.