Daniel J Foley

Daniel Foley is a geography researcher with the USGS and a graduate student at Northern Arizona University in Applied Geospatial Sciences. He is interested in utilizing Geographic Information Systems, geospatial technology, and remote sensing to solve problems in Earth and environmental science. Daniel joined the USGS in Flagstaff, AZ as part of the GFSAD30 team working for WaterSMART as a student contractor on remote sensing of global crop water productivity in May 2017. Daniel is passionate about Earth science and education and likes to stay current in interdisciplinary research techniques and developments. Daniel has a B.S. in Geological Sciences with a minor in Russian from ASU while completing geology field camp courses with James Cook University in Australia. His M.S. from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at ASU was on the tectonic geomorphology and thermochronology of the Transantarctic Mountains taking an integrated field, laboratory, and remote sensing approach. During this time he also worked field seasons for the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium conducting climate change research and for a NASA funded Astrobiology group in Yellowstone National Park conducting high precision geochemical surveys and analysis. He enjoys applying field methods to research and has done extensive geologic and geographic fieldwork that has taken him to remote corners world from the Arctic to the Antarctic. He also has a background in planetary geology research as a NASA Space Grant Intern working at the NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory having been a member of the Mars Exploration Rovers science team and worked with various Mars orbiter spacecraft data including the European Space Agency Mars Express. Following his M.S. he has worked in education as an adjunct professor of geology at Mesa Community College and Earth and Space Science at Grand Canyon University as well as an instructor at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden. Prior to the USGS he worked as Research Analyst in mission operations for the NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera at ASU. He is excited to be a part of the GFSAD30 team to help better understand modeling and mapping of global croplands for future food security and sustainability.