Dean Berkowitz Email & Phone Number

Washington, District Of Columbia, United States

Managing the research and development of SSC's Benefit-Cost Analysis Tool, which quantifies the co-benefits of climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions in urban contexts.

Pocatello, Idaho, United States

-Spearheaded an interdisciplinary research study assessing smoke pollution forecasting methods utilized by the National Weather Service to improve confidence in prescribed burn decision-making by land managers at the National Park Service. -Developed an open source software toolbox to acquire, analyze, and visualize mixing height estimations in the Western United States using CALIPSO LiDAR and MODIS vertical atmospheric profile data. -Co-designed an interactive ArcGIS Story Map… Show more -Spearheaded an interdisciplinary research study assessing smoke pollution forecasting methods utilized by the National Weather Service to improve confidence in prescribed burn decision-making by land managers at the National Park Service. -Developed an open source software toolbox to acquire, analyze, and visualize mixing height estimations in the Western United States using CALIPSO LiDAR and MODIS vertical atmospheric profile data. -Co-designed an interactive ArcGIS Story Map showcasing the project's research methods and findings for the general public. -Presented preliminary findings at the National Wildfire Coordinating Group's Smoke Committee meeting in June 2021. Show less

Asheville, North Carolina, United States

Developed a Composite Moisture Index (CMI) for the Missouri River Basin utilizing NASA Earth Observations (MODIS, SMAP) to produce a holistic and comprehensive assessment of moisture state on an interannual basis for use in drought and flood risk management by project partners at the Montana Climate Office, the NOAA NWS Missouri River Basin Forecasting Center, and the NOAA Regional Climate Services Director, Central Region. Co-led software design and integration, model development, and… Show more Developed a Composite Moisture Index (CMI) for the Missouri River Basin utilizing NASA Earth Observations (MODIS, SMAP) to produce a holistic and comprehensive assessment of moisture state on an interannual basis for use in drought and flood risk management by project partners at the Montana Climate Office, the NOAA NWS Missouri River Basin Forecasting Center, and the NOAA Regional Climate Services Director, Central Region. Co-led software design and integration, model development, and software testing in R. Principle developer of cartographic products for presentation slide decks and partner meetings. Co-designed an ArcGIS Story Map to create an interactive public-facing webpage showcasing project research methodology, cartographic products, hydrological dataset inputs and final CMI data product output. Show less

Berkeley, California, United States

Studied floristic biodiversity patterns in the Mojave desert using citizen science data to map sensitive habitat conservation priorities that could inform solar power plant development.For my honors thesis, I built a bioinformatics pipeline in R to analyze the spatial phylogenetics of vascular plants in the Cane Spring region of the Mojave National Preserve. Using species occurrence data collected through field surveys conducted by the nonprofit organization Blueprint Earth and genomics… Show more Studied floristic biodiversity patterns in the Mojave desert using citizen science data to map sensitive habitat conservation priorities that could inform solar power plant development.For my honors thesis, I built a bioinformatics pipeline in R to analyze the spatial phylogenetics of vascular plants in the Cane Spring region of the Mojave National Preserve. Using species occurrence data collected through field surveys conducted by the nonprofit organization Blueprint Earth and genomics sequencing data I mined from NCBI's GenBank, I constructed a maximum likelihood community phylogeny to understand evolutionary and spatial patterns of clustering and dispersion across the landscape. Through randomization tests, I produced biodiversity heatmaps showcasing areas of significantly high and low phylogenetic diversity compared to species richness in order to highlight conservation priorities across the region. Presented a poster of preliminary findings at the Botanical Society of America 2019 conference in Tucson, AZ. Show less