Scott Goetz

Scott J. Goetz is an American environmental scientist and Regents Professor at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in the School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems. He is a specialist in satellite remote sensing for environmental science applications, with research focused on arctic tundra and global forest ecosystems, climate and carbon cycle science, terrestrial ecology, and biodiversity. He serves as Science Lead of NASA's Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) and Deputy Principal Investigator for Science of NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), a lidar instrument aboard the International Space Station. In 1987, he earned a Master of Science degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with a thesis on predictive mapping of coast live oak woodlands using satellite and terrain data.

Career Goetz began his career as a research scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Branch at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he worked from 1985 to 1996. He subsequently joined the University of Maryland, College Park as a Research Professor, and has held an Adjunct Professor position there since 2003. He joined Northern Arizona University in 2016 as a Professor in the School of Informatics, Computing and Cyber Systems, and was subsequently named Regents Professor, the university's highest faculty distinction. He is associated with NAU's Radiant Center for Remote Sensing.

Research Since 1985, Goetz has conducted satellite remote sensing research for environmental science applications. His work spans arctic and boreal ecosystem dynamics, forest carbon stocks, vegetation change, permafrost vulnerability, wildfire, and biodiversity monitoring.

Goetz serves as Science Lead of NASA's Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE), an interdisciplinary program studying ecological and environmental change across the pan-Arctic and boreal biomes, with intensive airborne and field campaigns conducted in Alaska and western Canada between 2017 and 2024. He also serves as Deputy Principal Investigator for Science of NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), a space-based lidar instrument deployed on the International Space Station in 2019 that measures the three-dimensional structure of the Earth's forests and topography. He was awarded a Fulbright Research Scholarship in 2009–2010, hosted at the Centre d'Études Spatiales de la Biosphère (CESBIO) in Toulouse, France. He previously served as an Associate Editor of Remote Sensing of Environment.

His research on arctic and boreal ecosystem change has been covered by news outlets including NBC News, Science News, and ScienceDaily.

Selected publications Goetz, S. J.; Bunn, A. G.; Fiske, G.; Houghton, R. A. (2005). "Satellite observed photosynthetic trends across boreal North America associated with climate and fire disturbance". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (38): 13521–13525. Goetz, S. J.; Dubayah, R. O. (2011). "Advances in remote sensing technology and implications for monitoring, reporting and verifying forest carbon stocks and emissions". Carbon Management. 2 (3): 231–244. Goetz, S. J.; Hansen, M.; Houghton, R. A.; Walker, W.; Laporte, N.; Busch, J. (2015). "Measurement and monitoring needs, capabilities and potential for addressing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation under REDD+". Environmental Research Letters. 10 (12): 123001.