Jessica V. Fayne

Dr. Jessica V. Fayne is an Assistant Professor of Hydrology, Land Use and Climate Change in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Her research focuses on quantifying surface and near surface water (lakes, rivers, soil moisture and vegetation water) and how localized water availability is changing with climate change and land use dynamics. This work includes the development of high resolution reference datasets and retrievals of various land surface hydrology and hydro-meterological parameters. 

Graduating from the NCRL via the University of California, Los Angeles in June 2022, Dr. Fayne’s Ph.D. research, funded through the Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) program, sought to support the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission through study of novel airborne AirSWOT radar. The AirSWOT radar collected data on inland water data across Alaska and western Canada as part of the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE). The ABoVE 2017 AirSWOT data collection was funded by NCRL and processed by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During her Ph.D., she worked with scientists and engineers at NASA-JPL on AirSWOT data. 

Prior to her Ph.D. work, Jessica earned a BA in Political Science from Hampton University (HBCU), a Grad. Cert. in International Relations from American University, and a M.S. in Geographic Information Science/Remote Sensing from George Mason University.