Denis Muthike Email & Phone Number

Boulder, Co, Us

Boulder, Colorado, United States

Boulder, Colorado, United States

I provide leadership for the Global Engineering Residential Academic Program supporting engineering students enrolled in the program to integrate global engineering thinking and practice into their student life and professional development.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

I lead and coordinate the implementation of climate resilience research projects to improve the capacity of end users and partners working to strengthen drought and flood resilience in Africa. This role includes:1. Expanding drought preparedness and response in Kenya and the IGAD region through the Drought Resilience Impact Platform, which uses satellites, electronic borehole sensors, and climate finance. 2. Integrating meteorological satellite observations, ground-based river gauges, hydrological models, and capacity building to enhance flood monitoring and forecasting in Rwanda.3. Providing data analytics and hydrological modeling for a large-scale impact evaluation study in Rwanda and several other countries.4. Developing and maintaining relationships with collaborators and stakeholders and fundraising for research.I also teach CU Boulder's undergraduate and graduate courses, which are focused on building and improving students' knowledge of earth observations, environmental decision-making, and disaster risk reduction.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

My responsibilities include providing geospatial data services to Virridy's water security and resilience interventions and coordinating the implementation of the project "Strengthening PAStoralist livelihoodS in the African Greater horn through Effective anticipatory action (PASSAGE)" funded through the CLimate Adaptation & REsilience (CLARE) framework.Virridy Inc. (formerly SweetSense Inc.) develops and deploys technologies to manage water, energy and agricultural resources in remote, off-grid environments. Our low-cost satellite-connected sensors are compatible with a wide range of fixed infrastructure. Leveraging machine learning, we enable responsive remote management of the environment.

Kasarani, Nairobi, Kenya

As a thematic lead in the NASA SERVIR project, I led the research and development of tools that integrated Earth observations for climate services provision to the Eastern and Southern African region. Specifically;1. I provided technical leadership and supervision to the thematic team, to work effectively and came up with results as per SERVIR-ESA's Work Plan and the SERVIR Results Framework.2. Together with my team members, I helped conceptualize problem areas through the engagement of relevant stakeholders and formulation of appropriate services to respond to these problems.3. I led the engagement of partner institutions in problem definition, proposal development, and execution of multiple projects to achieve desired results within the thematic area. Partner institutions included SERVIR implementing partners, implementers of Applied Science Projects, and regional centers of excellence in climate and resilience among others.4. I led the development of thematic area work plans in liaison with other Thematic Leads under SERVIR-ESA and contributed to the overall SERVIR-ESA work planning process. 5. I coordinated and worked with different agencies and SERVIR partners including government agencies, non-governmental organizations, universities, and research institutes, among others) to derive products that are relevant to policy and/or operations.6. I led and coordinated the analysis of data and information and wrote articles for both technical and non-technical audiences.7. I led cutting edge capacity building solutions for stakeholders in the SERVIR ESA region. This included the development of training material and the planning and implementation of training seminars and workshops.

Nairobi, Kenya

My main role in this position was to lead the establishment of a functional disaster risk reduction program at the institution to improve the capacity of the Member States in the use of earth observation data and geospatial technologies, in coordination with Section heads and the GIS and Remote Sensing Director. This role also included promoting the use of and co-development of models and tools that use NASA satellite data for flood and drought management. My main achievements include the development of hazard risk and vulnerability atlases for the IGAD region, Malawi and Rwanda, provision of technical data analysis and mapping to support the identification of climate vulnerability hotspots in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) covering five countries (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi) and the revision of the LVB Climate Change Adaptation Strategy. I also developed training material focused on geospatial data analysis in disaster risk reduction and trained over 300 participants from government and non-governmental organizations.

Boulder, Colorado, United States

Thesis title: Evaluating Climate Resilience in Rural East Africa using Mixed Methods Experimental Studies, Remote Sensing and Machine Learning.1. I developed a streamflow and flood prediction model as a contribution to an impact evaluation study design for rural transportation infrastructure in Rwanda. The model will eventually be deployed to support a flood early warning and early action service in the country.2. I evaluated errors in satellite rainfall models to improve our understanding of legacy satellite rainfall products used for monitoring and forecasting floods and drought risks in Sub-Saharan Africa. The findings will be valuable for climate research targeting rainfall retrieval model improvements, and hydrometeorological extremes impact studies.3. I designed a mixed methods study design that can be relied upon to improve our understanding of the impact of climate adaptation interventions in rural communities in developing economies.4. I was a co-investigator on an operational groundwater demand forecasting service that was deployed in 2022 to support drought resilience in Kenya.These contributions are published in leading journals: Journal of Hydrometeorology, Science of The Total Environment, and Frontiers in Climate.

Nairobi, Kenya

My role was to support the iLabAfrica hub at the university on the implementation of climate data science projects. Specifically, I worked with technicians and students to evaluate the efficiency of regional climate model data from the CORDEX experiment and the CMIP5 Global Climate Models in detecting extreme weather/climate events in Kenya (Turkana, Wajir, Narok, and Ahero) using machine learning algorithms (Histogram-Based Outlier Detection, Cluster-Based Outlier Factor, Isolation Forest, and K-Nearest Neighbors) and data science tools, mainly R and Python.

Mombasa, Mombasa County, Kenya

My roles included coral reef and fisheries data collection on scuba and snorkel, analysis, and reporting. I was also responsible for geospatial analysis and I supported several programs including coral reef and climate change projects, fish stock assessments, socio-economic research that involved local and migrant fishers across the Western Indian Ocean. I was the GIS, and Remote Sensing lab administrator. My achievements included expanding the geospatial capacity for CORDIO and co-author of peer-reviewed papers that have resulted in among others establishment of community conservation areas in Kenya.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Environmental Studies

Doctoral research in environmental studies with a focus on the resilience of rural communities in developing countries to environmental.

Master Of Science - Ms, Climate Change

My research investigated the impact of climate variability and change on social vulnerability in Kenya. I developed country-wide climate.

Bachelor Of Science - Bs, Environmental Science

Activities and Societies: Competitive swimming and cycling, lawn tennis team and a member of the University Environment club.