Nicholas Charles Coops

Nicholas Charles Coops is a Professor and Department Head of Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Forestry. He holds the UBC Chair in Forest Management and serves as Director of the Masters for Geomatics for Environmental Management program, while co-directing the Master of Sustainable Forest Management.

• Integrated Remote Sensing Studio (IRSS) Founder
• Canadian Forest Service Collaborator
• Developer of 3PGS and CAN-TG forest growth models

Research Interests focus on:

• Linking vegetation pigments/structure to remote sensing data
• LiDAR applications for forest height and DEM modeling
• Dynamic Habitat Index (DHI) for biomass distribution analysis
• Machine learning for forest inventory and biodiversity monitoring
• Climate change impacts on boreal and temperate forests
• UAV-based phenotyping for forest management

Recent Publications demonstrate expertise in LiDAR integration, satellite-based forest monitoring, and ecological modeling across diverse scales from individual trees to national datasets.

Scientific Awards include:

• Seven consecutive Highly Cited Researcher designations (2019-2024)
• Canada Research Chair in Remote Sensing
• Royal Society of Canada Fellowship (2022)
• Marcus Wallenberg Prize (2020)
• UBC Killam Research Prize (2020)
• Canadian Remote Sensing Society Gold Medal (2020)

Integrated Remote Sensing Studio leads collaborative projects with government agencies, industry partners, and international institutions to advance remote sensing applications in forestry, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation.