Zoe Pierrat

Biography

I am a multidisciplinary remote sensing and earth system scientist. Before joining UCSB, I was a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at the NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. I received my Ph.D. and M.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of California Los Angeles and my B.A. from Colorado College.

Research

My research is focused on using and developing remote sensing techniques for understanding plant's role in the carbon and water cycles and building a more sustainable future. I do this by linking observed remote sensing metrics to their physical and biological drivers across scales (leaf to globe). In doing so, my research helps quantify carbon and water fluxes, understand environmental stresses on terrestrial ecosystems, and uses these findings to plan for the future in a changing climate system.

Selected Publications

Pierrat, Z. A., Magney, T. S., Richardson, W. P., Runkle, B. R. K., Diehl, J., Yang, X., Woodgate, W., Smith, W. K., Johnston, M. R., Ginting, Y. R. S., Koren, G., Albert, L. P., Kibler, C. L., Morgan, B. E., Barnes, M., Uscanga, A., Devine, C., Javadian, M., Meza, K., Julitta, T., Tagliabue, G., Dannenberg, M. P., Antala, M., Wong, C. Y. S., Santos, A. L. D., Hufkens, K., Marrs, J. K., Stovall, A. E. L., Liu, Y., Fisher, J. B., Gamon, J, A., Cawse-Nicholson, K. (2025). Proximal Remote Sensing: An essential tool for bridging the gap between high resolution ecosystem monitoring and global ecology. New Phytologist Tansley Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.20405

Pierrat, Z. A., Purdy, A. J., Halverson, G., Fisher, J. B., Mallick, K., Pascolini-Campbell, M., Ryu, Y., Anderson, M. C., Villanueva-Weeks, C., Johnson, M. C., Hatch, B., Davis, E., Yang, Y., & Cawse-Nicholson, K. (2025). Evaluation of ECOSTRESS Collection 2 Evapotranspiration Products: Strengths and Uncertainties for Evapotranspiration Modeling. Water Resources Research, 61(6), e2024WR039404. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024WR039404 

Runkle, B. R. K., Barnes, M., Dannenberg, M., Gamon, J. A., Magney, T., Pierrat, Z., Southwick, C. D., Still, C., & Woodgate, W. (2025). Near-surface remote sensing applications for a robust, climate-smart measurement, monitoring, and information system (MMIS). Carbon Management, 16(1), 2465361. https://doi.org/10.1080/17583004.2025.2465361

Cawse-Nicholson, K., Chadwick, K. D., Brodrick, P. G., Kiper, M., Thompson, D. R., Schimel, D., Miller, C. E., Townsend, P. A., Alves, L. F., Shiklomanov, A. N., Cho, M. A., Ramoelo, A., Tsele, P., Majozi, N., Pierrat, Z. A., & Ferrier, S. (2025). Intrinsic dimensionality as a metric for temporal plant diversity evaluation: Case study from the SHIFT campaign. Ecosphere, 16(4), e70213. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70213

Pierrat, Z. A., Magney, T. S., Maguire, A., Brissette, L., Doughty, R., Bowling, D. R., Logan, B., Parazoo, N., Frankenberg, C., Stutz, J. (2024). Seasonal timing of fluorescence and photosynthetic yields at needle and canopy scales in evergreen needleleaf forests. Ecology, e4402. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4402 

Pierrat, Z. A., Magney, T. S., Cheng, R., Maguire, A. J., Wong, C. Y. S., Nehemy, M. F., Rao, M., *Nelson, S. E., *Williams, A. F., *Grosvenor, J. A. H., Smith, K. R., Reblin, J. S., Stutz, J., Richardson, A. D., Logan, B. A., & Bowling, D. R. (2024). The biological basis for using optical signals to track evergreen needleleaf photosynthesis. BioScience, biad116. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad116

Pierrat, Z. A., Bortnik, J., Johnson, B., Barr, A., Magney, T., Bowling, D. R., Parazoo, N., Frankenberg, C., Seibt, U., & Stutz, J. (2022). Forests for forests: Combining vegetation indices with solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence in random forest models improves gross primary productivity prediction in the boreal forest. Environmental Research Letters, 17(12), 125006. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aca5a0

Pierrat, Z., Magney, T., Parazoo, N. C., Grossmann, K., Bowling, D. R., Seibt, U., Johnson, B., Helgason, W., Barr, A., Bortnik, J., Norton, A., Maguire, A., Frankenberg, C., & Stutz, J. (2022). Diurnal and Seasonal Dynamics of Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Vegetation Indices, and Gross Primary Productivity in the Boreal Forest. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 127(2), e2021JG006588. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006588

Nelson, P. R., Maguire, A. J., Pierrat, Z., Orcutt, E. L., Yang, D., Serbin, S., Frost, G. V., Macander, M. J., Magney, T. S., Thompson, D. R., Wang, J. A., Oberbauer, S. F., Zesati, S. V., Davidson, S. J., Epstein, H. E., Unger, S., Campbell, P. K. E., Carmon, N., Velez‐Reyes, M., & Huemmrich, K. F. (2022). Remote Sensing of Tundra Ecosystems Using High Spectral Resolution Reflectance: Opportunities and Challenges. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 127(2). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006697

Pierrat, Z., Nehemy, M. F., Roy, A., Magney, T., Parazoo, N. C., Laroque, C., Pappas, C., Sonnentag, O., Grossmann, K., Bowling, D. R., Seibt, U., *Ramirez, A., Johnson, B., Helgason, W., Barr, A., & Stutz, J. (2021). Tower-Based Remote Sensing Reveals Mechanisms Behind a Two-phased Spring Transition in a Mixed-Species Boreal Forest. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 126(5), e2020JG006191. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG00619