Stephen Leisz

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Institutional Affiliation 

Colorado State University

Director, Land Change Science and Remote Sensing Laboratory

Education

• Ph.D. in Geography, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2007
• Master of Science in Environmental Monitoring, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin
• Bachelor of Arts in American Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Regional and Thematic Interests

Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand);  Land-Use/Land-Cover Change; International Development 

Profile

My research is focused within the field of land change science. Through the use of remote sensing data (e.g., current and historical satellite imagery and aerial photographs, lidar and radar), quantitative, qualitative, and participatory fieldwork, and spatial analysis, including the use of geographical information science (GIS) and participatory GIS, I investigate the human-environment interactions that lead to land-use and land-cover changes over local and regional landscapes. Over the course of my career, I have worked on issues of land change, and the drivers of land-cover and land-use change, and livelihood systems changes in West Africa and Madagascar (during the 1980s and 1990s), and since 1997 in Southeast Asia.  Since 2007 I have expanded my work to include research on climate change in Melanesia and also to the application of remote sensing and GIS to archaeology. In association with my interest in understanding the drivers of land change, I also research how human livelihoods are changing in rural, peri-urban and, in some cases, urban areas. In conjunction with this interest, I have been involved in international development projects and I investigate how development and land change interact. At Colorado State University, I am the Director of the Land Change Science and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Co-Director of the Center for Archaeology and Remote Sensing, and I am on the International Development Studies Board. I am also a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, having served in Senegal with the United States Peace Corps for three years and I am a First-Generation College Graduate.

Selected Publications

A full list of my publications can found at: ‪Stephen Leisz - ‪Google Scholar