Dr. Nathaniel Chaney

Biography

Prior to arriving at Duke, Nathaniel Chaney was a postdoctoral research associate in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences program at Princeton University, where he held a dual appointment as a visiting research scientist at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Atmospheric Sciences and Applied Mathematics. For graduate studies, he attended Princeton University and received a Ph.D. in Hydrology from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. His research leverages existing petabytes of global environmental data to enhance understanding of the terrestrial water cycle, with a specific focus on quantifying the role of multi-scale spatial organization of land (i.e., heterogeneity) in the Earth system. His research encompasses improving the representation of land heterogeneity in Earth system models, characterizing observed spatial patterns of land features using environmental data, and quantifying the sensitivity of the hydrologic cycle to spatial heterogeneity. Tools utilized by his research group include numerical modeling, satellite remote sensing, machine learning, and high-performance computing. He is currently seeking highly motivated Ph.D. students and postdoctoral researchers.

Research Interests

Experience

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