David Chaparro

David Chaparro is a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), funded by the José Castillejo fellowship. His research focuses on remote sensing for Earth observation, particularly leveraging microwave radiometers and optical sensors to address environmental challenges such as forest decline, carbon stock analysis, fire risk assessment, and agricultural monitoring. He holds a PhD in Remote Sensing (Telecommunication Engineering) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and has conducted research at the European Union’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Spanish Research Council (CSIC).

Education:

• Bachelor of Science in Biology (2011)
• M.Sc. in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (2012)
• M.Sc. in Terrestrial Ecology (2013)
• PhD in Remote Sensing (2018) from UPC

Research Interests: Chaparro’s work spans microwave sensing applications in environmental research, including modeling drought impacts on forests, developing fire risk tools operationalized by Barcelona’s forest rangers, and analyzing carbon stocks in tropical forests. At MIT, he explores satellite data for studying vegetation water content and the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC).

Awards:

• 2017 Remote Sensing Journal travel award
• José Castillejo fellowship (funding his MIT postdoc)

Advising & Grants: Advised two master’s theses. His research is supported by grants from the Spanish government and MIT. Collaborates on projects like ESA-China GNSS-R workshops and the GEROS/GARCA-SIM initiative.

Labs & Teams: Engaged with MIT’s environmental research groups and previously collaborated with the JRC’s Bioeconomy unit and CSIC on fire risk modeling.