Kelly Caylor

Kelly Caylor is a Professor and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, Santa Barbara, holding joint appointments at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and the Department of Geography. His research focuses on understanding the interaction of land use and climate change in global drylands, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and the U.S. Southwest. He explores ecosystem resilience, water-use efficiency, and coupled natural-human systems through field experiments, modeling, and novel observation networks. Caylor leads the WAVES Lab, which develops technologies like the Arable Mark sensor and the PulsePod for real-time agricultural monitoring.

Education: PhD and BA in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia. Awards: NSF Early Career Award, AGU Early Career Hydrological Sciences Award. Students: Supervises PhD candidates like Anna Boser (ecosystem services, remote sensing) and Zoe Sims (agriculture, environmental policy). Publications span ecohydrology, environmental sensing, and socio-environmental systems, with over 100 peer-reviewed articles.

Key projects include NSF-funded studies on riparian ecosystems, climate impacts on subsistence agriculture, and urban food security. The lab’s innovations include remote sensing algorithms, UAV-based monitoring, and machine learning for crop analysis. Collaborations include international institutions like Mpala Research Centre and the International Food Policy Research Institute.