Marielle Smith

Dr. Marielle Smith is a Lecturer in Forest Sciences at Bangor University's School of Environmental and Natural Sciences. Her research focuses on ecosystem ecology, tropical forests, global change, remote sensing, and plant ecophysiology, with a decade-long emphasis on Amazonian forests. She investigates how these ecosystems respond to climate and land-use changes using remote sensing, field observations, and international collaborations.

Her work addresses critical uncertainties in tropical forest resilience to drought, structural shifts due to disturbances, and carbon dynamics. Key projects include analyzing Amazon forest biogeography for resilience patterns and exploring the role of water tables as hydrological refugia. Smith also develops novel methods like LiDAR and deep learning to assess forest structure and ecological memory across scales.

Her publications span 2014–2024, emphasizing climate change impacts, disturbance effects, and technological innovations in ecological monitoring. She leads two active grants: 'Toward a unified theory of tropical forest structural responses' and 'Mapping forest carbon stocks using polarimetric SAR.'

Collaborations include large-scale international teams, reflecting her commitment to interdisciplinary solutions for global environmental challenges.