Roger Michaelides, assistant professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at WashU, is a radar geophysicist who develops and applies novel techniques and methodologies to study properties of the Earth’s surface, hydrologic cycle and climate system. His interests lie at the intersection of geophysics, earth surface processes and applied radar engineering.
He uses uses a variety of remote sensing instruments, geospatial techniques and time series methods to study dynamic surface processes from Arctic tundra wildfires to high-desert debris flows. Michaelides has expertise in Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR), radar altimetry, ground-penetrating radar and radio echo sounding.
His research interests include studying active layer and tundra wildfire interactions within the context of a warming Arctic; monitoring wildfires and debris flows with InSAR; and developing multi-sensor (radar, optical, lidar) fusion strategies for surface topography and surface deformation and change observations, among other topics.