Luisa Lucchese

Luisa Lucchese is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Department of Geology and Environmental Science, where she leads NASA-funded research on global sediment flux estimation using Machine Learning. Previously held a Postdoctoral position (2023-2024) and conducted PhD research at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) with a Sandwich PhD at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena.

Education:

• PhD in Water Resources and Environmental Sanitation (2018-2022), UFRGS
• Master's in Water Resources and Environmental Sanitation (2016-2018), UFRGS
• Bachelor in Civil Engineering (2011-2015), UFRGS

Research Focus: Applies Remote Sensing, Spatial Data Science, and AI to study river geomorphology, freshwater monitoring, climate change impacts, and natural hazards. Active in open-source geospatial tool development, with a dedicated Remote Sensing/GIS blog showcasing PyQGIS and GDAL workflows.

Key Achievements:

• Recipient of CAPES National Award for PhD Theses (2023)
• Lead developer of explainable AI models for sediment flux estimation
• Authored 5+ peer-reviewed publications on landslide susceptibility and hydrological modeling

Professional Contributions: Presented at EGU General Assembly (2022-2024), WorCAP Conference (2023), and Spatial Lightning Talks (2023). Maintains datasets on landslide susceptibility and rainfall triggers.

Labs/Teams: Principal Investigator at Prof. John Gardner’s Lab, collaborates with NASA Earth Science Division on fluvial hydrology projects.