Research Expertise and Interest

landscape ecology, remote sensing, GIS, spatial analysis, urban geography, ecosystem change, biodiversity, ecosystem services, wetlands, urban regions, landscape dynamics

Research Description

Iryna Dronova is an associate professor jointly appointed in the Departments of Environmental Science, Policy & Management (Rausser College of Natural Resources) and Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning (College of Environmental Design). She is interested in diverse aspects of landscape ecology and its potential to inform sustainable, multi-functional landscape-designs and decision-making in environmental planning. Her research combines field ecological methods with remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis to perform analyses of multi-scale structure of ecosystems, to facilitate scaling of ecological processes from local to regional levels and to develop remote sensing-based monitoring approaches for vulnerable areas and sites with limited field access. She is especially interested in developing new conceptual and practical frameworks for spatially heterogeneous and highly dynamic landscapes, both wildland and human-modified (including urban regions). Since May 2017 she is also an affiliate Professor of Geography at UC Berkeley Department of Geography.