Dr Mitchell Lyons

Role: Senior Research Fellow

Bio: My work sits at the interface of remote sensing, machine learning, ecology and management. It revolves around testing and development of quantitative methods and earth observation workflows, with a focus on being flexible, scalable and repeatable. I have pure and applied research experience in a wide range of disciplines, including habitat mapping, time series monitoring, natural resource management, environmental economic accounting, disaster mapping/monitoring, precision agriculture and conservation. I’ve worked extensively with both government-lead (e.g. Landsat, Sentinel, MODIS) and commercial (e.g. Digital Globe, Planet) products, utilising both long and dense time series. I have developed workflows for a range of spatial data types, including integration with in-situ, drone-based and aerial data sources. I work in a range of environments from coastal and marine through to rainforest and deserts. I hold a philosophy of developing strong connections with stakeholders, and for the past decade I have worked closely with various state and federal government agencies, building relationships that aim to transfer cutting edge methods into operational workflows for mapping, monitoring and management applications. I enjoy working in the field for data collection, and am comfortable in most terrestrial and marine settings. I also have experience working with collaborators and stakeholders delivering courses and knowledge transfer workshops.

Technically speaking, my expertise lies in remote sensing and ecological modelling (statistics and machine learning), and I generally take a computational programming (R and Python specifically, and JavaScript on the Google Earth Engine) approach. Non-technically speaking, two young kids and a small farm take up most of my time, and if there's any left over I love getting into the river or the ocean.

Research field keywords: ecology, remote sensing and GIS, ecological modelling, vegetation science, statistical ecology

Publications: see my Google Scholar profile (http://scholar.google.com.au/citations?user=9PnIKHYAAAAJ), and please contact me if you would like a copy of any of my papers.

Code + software: see my github page (https://github.com/mitchest/)

email: mitchell.lyons@unsw.edu.au | location: Bredbo, NSW (remote) | online: @mitchest, LinkedIn