Isaiah Lyons-Galante

Bio

Isaiah Lyons-Galante is a Ph.D. student in Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, where his research focuses on developing geospatial machine learning methods to measure poverty, inequality, and human well-being at fine spatial and temporal scales. His doctoral work builds on a background in remote sensing and machine learning, using satellite imagery, population datasets, and other geospatial data sources to better capture patterns of development in data-scarce regions. At CU, he co-taught the graduate seminar AI for Good and is helping teach Human Dimensions of Environmental Change. He is passionate about working with implementing partners to scale the impact of his research.

Before beginning his Ph.D., Isaiah completed an M.A. in Geography at CU Boulder, where his thesis examined the detectability of rural mini-grids in Sub-Saharan Africa using satellite nightlights. During his Master’s, he was a research intern at the National Renewable Energy Lab developing novel visualization systems for large-scale energy data. Before graduate school, he worked most of his career for a solar-energy start-up in Kenya called PowerGen across software engineering, systems modeling, and operations to improve energy access across East and West Africa. His current work aims to integrate these experiences to advance new tools for mapping inequality and supporting equitable, sustainable development.

Research Interests

Remote Sensing, Machine Learning, Geospatial Data Science, Sustainable Development, Poverty Alleviation, Causal Inference

Education

• M.A. in Geography, CU Boulder 2022
• B.Sc. in Physics, Yale University 2014

Faculty Advisors

Zia Mehrabi