Corey Scher

Corey Scher

PhD Candidate in Earth and Environmental Sciences

City University of New York

Biography

My doctoral research leverages geophysics and dense time series of satellite imaging radar data to study water conflict and war impacts from space.

I’m a PhD candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center and work in close coordination with the Conflict Ecology group at Oregon State.

In addition to academic research, I collaborate on journalistic and humanitarian investigations at the interface of conflict and environment. My work supporting visual reporting has appeared in outlets like the New York Times, Financial Times, Washington Post, BBC, CNN, Der Spiegel, NPR, the Times, and others.

Interests

  • Geodesy
  • Geography
  • Synthetic aperture radar (interferometry)

Education

  • PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences, (expected 2024)

    Graduate Center at the City University of New York

  • MS in Geology, 2019

    City University of New York

  • Bachelors in Geology, 2017

    University of California, Berkeley

Projects

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‘Sacrificing part for the whole’

Mapping floodwater extent to support investigative journalism at the Washington Post

Detecting mass burial sites in Tigray

Processing and analysis of VHR satellite optical imagery

2023 AGU Fall Meeting Session on Physical and Environmental Impacts of War in Ukraine

Co-convening a session on physical and environmental impacts of war in Ukraine

NASA Applied Remote Sensing Training in Humanitarian Applications

Co-taught a session for Earth observation practitioners on the use of NASA open-source processing tools for monitoring damage to built-up areas during military conflict

Subsidence monitoring in transboundary aquifers

Monitoring sustainability of shared groundwater resources using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR)

Fires on land concessions for palm cultivation in Indonesia

Remote sensing of burn patterns in support of an investigation around the intentionality of peatland fires for forest clearing

Recent Publications

Mapping seasonal glacier melt across the Hindu Kush Himalaya with time series synthetic aperture radar (SAR)

Current observational data on Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) glaciers are sparse, and characterizations of seasonal melt dynamics are …
Mapping seasonal glacier melt across the Hindu Kush Himalaya with time series synthetic aperture radar (SAR)

Contact

  • 160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031
  • DM me