Danielle Wood, an Earth scientist and Systems Engineer with deep roots in the NASA Earth Applied Sciences Program, was interviewed for a podcast that features leading researchers and experts in her field. Wood was featured on the March 23, 2021 episode of Resources Radio, a weekly podcast from Resources for the Future (RFF).
Wood was the Applied Sciences manager at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and continues to work with the Applied Sciences Program through her research group Space Enabled. Wood founded and is the director of Space Enabled, which is based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. Space Enabled aims to make it easier and more affordable for people around the world to make use of space-enabled technology and data.
In the podcast episode, titled Space, Satellites, and Society: New Tools for Policymakers, with Danielle Wood, Wood discussed her career path and ways she’s working to bring justice and equity to the forefront of Earth science and space technology. This includes working with NASA on fostering international collaboration across industry and expertise to advance the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, and a project with RFF and NASA’s VALUABLES Consortium in collaboration with Suhyun Jung, professor at West Virginia University, assessing how satellite data can protect the health of Brazil’s fragile mangrove forests and inform conservation policy.
Examples of Space Enabled projects include a collaboration in Ghana with local scientists and leaders to combat environmental degradation from illegal gold mining, and another in Benin to collaborate with an ecotechnology firm that is reducing harmful impacts of invasive water plants. Both projects are supported by a grant from the Ecological Forecasting program area of NASA Earth Applied Sciences.
The full podcast episode and transcript can be found on the Resources Radio website. The audio can also be found on SoundCloud and other major podcast platforms.
More about Danielle Wood can be found in her profile, Danielle Wood – Advancing Earth Justice by Way of Space.
VALUABLES is a cooperative agreement between Resources for the Future (RFF) and NASA to quantify and communicate the socioeconomic benefits of satellite data applications. Resources for the Future (RFF) is an independent, nonprofit research institution in Washington, DC. Its mission is to improve environmental, energy, and natural resource decisions through impartial economic research and policy engagement.
