Hi, my name is Amber or Mengyu. I am currently a first-year PhD student at the Department of Geographical Sciences at UMD. I am researching on fusing Lidar remote sensing with time series from multispectral satellite imagery to understand the structural changes of forest and woodlands and the biomass and carbon stock dynamics as vegetation structure varies. More specifically, I am using data from the newest spaceborne lidar, GEDI mission, to study how charcoal production in Eastern Africa has changed the forest's above-ground biomass density and carbon stock. For my dissertation, I am interested in developing a framework of using the open-access remote sensing data to quantitatively measure the successes of long-term forest landscape restoration in Eastern Africa. I would love to collaborate with local stakeholders and other conservation initiatives to develop a novel application case for using remote sensing towards sustainable development goals. Before coming to UMD, I earned my Master's degree in cartography from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and during my Master's program, I studied in three prestigious institutions in Europe - TUM, Vienna University of Technology and Technical University of Dresden. I also conducted remote sensing related research in all three institutes while studying there. The experiences I had living in Europe and working with European scientists are priceless for my personal and academic growth, and I would not trade these experiences for anything. If you are interested in learning about my experience or talking to me about cartography, remote sensing, or GEDI, feel free to email me or find more information on the Resume section.