Nadine Laporte

Career Prior to becoming a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, where she was director of the Africa program, she conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Maryland in College Park and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Maryland.

She is adjunct research professor at Northern Arizona University.

Research Much of Laporte's research focuses on mapping and monitoring carbon emissions, deforestation, and forest biomass. The main area of study is tropical and sub-tropical land masses. REDD+ is a policy mechanism to reduce carbon emissions by helping to protect tropical forests and lessen deforestation. She assisted the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to quantify forest carbon stocks and emissions reporting for REDD+ under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This method was suggested because it would help protect biodiversity, people living in the area, and maintaining stored carbon in these tropical ecosystems.

Other roles Laporte has been a panelist and guest speaker for NASA, the ClimateWorks Foundation, Woods Hole Research Center, and several other research programs. She was also the principal investigator for the project Forest Biomass and Land-Use Change in Central Africa: Reducing Regional Carbon Cycle Uncertainty, starting 2004 and ending in 2007. This study aimed to develop remote sensing that could be utilized for national reporting.

Publication Laporte's articles have been published in Nature Climate Change, Carbon Balance and Management, Science, International Journal of Remote Sensing, Society for Conservation Biology, Environmental Conservation, Environmental Research Letters, International Forestry Review, American Journal of Primatology, and Nature Sustainability.

Personal life Laporte married to Scott J. Goetz, a professor of informatics, computing, and cybersystems at Northern Arizona University.