Overview
Date Last Updated
28 January 2024
Location
Boulder, Co
What can I do for you?
Dr. Natasha StavrosTM is a nonfiction writer and a jester in philosophy; a change maker, researcher, yogi, mother, scientist, business woman, systems thinker, social facilitator, fierce advocate for justice, and committed introspect. When others see the improbable, I see the possible.
Natasha developed the WKID Innovation framework to generalize processes for innovation using leadership techniques and NASA system engineering, thereby forming the basis of WKID Solutions. Dr. Stavros is a social facilitator specializing in changing systems through holistic approaches. Her background has primarily focused on environmental resilience. Dr. Stavros has a Bachelors in Mathematics and minor in Computer Science from University of Colorado Boulder (2008), a Masters of Science in Environmental Sustainability from the University of Edinburgh (2009), and a Ph.D. in Forest and Fire Ecology from the University of Washington Seattle (2013).
Dr. Natasha Stavros experience span:
- Technology transfer
- Facilitating collaborations across disciplines
- Business Development
- Project system engineering
- Portfolio and Project Management
Domain expertise include:
- Fire Ecology
- Urban Ecology
- Carbon Cycle
- Biodiversity
- Data Science
- Information Technologies
- Space systems
Accomplishments
Awards by Participation
- NASA Group Achievement Awards (3x)
- JPL Charles Elachi Early Career Achievement Award
- JPL Discovery (2x) and Voyager (2x) Awards
- NSF $20M Data Synthesis Center (ESIIL)
- 4 Op-Eds, 39 Media Engagements (NPR, NYTimes, LA Times, etc)
- 42 Invited Talks: TEDx, American Museum of Natural History, etc
- 4 Chaired Conference Sessions and 5 Hosted Workshops
- 38 peer-reviewed academic publications; 13 first author; 7 in work
- Boulder Writers Alliance (BWA) Membership Chair
- 3 student dissertations, 5 white papers, and 15 government reports
- JPL New Researchers Support Group Elected Board Member: Papers & Proposal Chair, Vice President, and President
Experience
Mission Area Lead
Civil Space Earth Sciences
Ball Aerospace
May 2023 - March 2025
Skills
Business strategy and development for Civil Space Earth Sciences primarily liaising with NASA and USGS
Stakeholder engagement
Capture management and proposal development
Director of Earth Lab Analytics Hub
CU Boulder CIRES - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science
Dec 2020 - April 2023
Skills
Develop and contribute to a vision to maintain Earth Lab’s Analytics Hub as a national leader in the areas of remote sensing data integration, machine learning, and open reproducible science
Intellectual lead for Earth Lab’s technical capabilities in analytics, maintaining and growing Earth Lab’s reputation through active participation in the data analytics research
Primary technical liaison with Earth Lab partners, including CU faculty and researchers, federal and state agencies, industry partners, etc
Support and build the Analytics Hub including managing key efforts, developing and tracking evaluation metrics, and facilitating collaboration between the Analytics Hub, Earth Lab science teams, and the Earth Analytics Education Program
Mentor Earth Lab postdocs, research scientists, and student interns
Director of ESIIL Analytics and Cyberinfrastructure
CU Boulder CIRES - Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science
Aug 2022 - April 2023
Skills
Develop and lead a vision to serve the Nation’s biological sciences through analytics and cyberinfrastructure at the Environmental Data Science Innovation and Inclusion Lab (ESIIL), a $20M National Science Foundation funded data synthesis center
Intellectual co-lead for ESIIL technical capabilities in analytics and cyberinfrastructure in collaboration with CyVerse
Technical liaison with ESIIL data and cyberinfrastructure partnerships
Manage key efforts including developing and tracking evaluation metrics
Mentor ESIIL postdocs, research scientists, and student interns
Science and Applications System Engineer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
May 2016 - Feb 2021
Skills
Project/Product Delivery Manager and System Engineer of Data Systems (architecture, data, tools and services)
NISAR Deputy Program Applications Co-Lead developing and coordinating a program to infuse NISAR data into data workflows by industry, academia, and governments
NASA mission formulation distills complex systems science into engineering requirements
Natural Resources decision support information product development from NASA big data
Post-Doctoral Researcher
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
October 2013-April 2016
Duties
Soil Moisture Active Passive calibration and validation of the Level 4 Carbon product
ECOSTRESS data product Level 2-4 calibration and validation
Wildfire Applications information product development