I am originally from Russia, and received my MSc in Cartography in 2011 from Lomonosov Moscow State University. My Master's thesis was focused on mapping the northernmost forests in the world, and I got a chance to visit Taymyr peninsula doing field research.

After moving from Moscow to Maryland, I have been working at the Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, where my research focus has moved to the tropical forests. I received my Ph.D. in May 2015. My dissertation research supervised by Prof. Matt Hansen was focused on characterizing forest disturbance dynamics in the humid tropics using optical and Lidar remotely sensed data sets. I stayed at the same lab (UMD GLAD) for my post-doctoral research, working primarily on sample-based estimation of forest loss drivers in the tropics. I am currently an Associate Research Professor at the UMD GLAD, continuing to work on all things sample-based and forest loss related. My latest focus has been on the drivers of forest loss. I feel grateful for this opportunity to learn and grow working with an amazing GLAD team. I have also been lucky to visit humid tropical forests I study from space on a field trip to the northern Republic of the Congo back in 2014, and to do a ground survey of post-disturbance fate of the forests in Mexican Yucatán.