The Planet Fellowship at the Taylor Geospatial Institute Drives Innovation in Geospatial Applications
PlanetScope image of St. Louis, Missouri, captured October 9, 2025. © 2025 Planet Labs PBC. All Rights Reserved.
StoriesPlanet is excited to celebrate the four researchers selected as the 2025 Taylor Geospatial Institute (TGI) Planet Fellows. Through this program, students use Planet data to advance their research and tackle pressing societal challenges. By supporting this fellowship, we’re helping cultivate the next generation of scientific leaders while expanding how our data is applied to real-world problems.
The TGI Planet Fellowship specifically sought proposals that use our satellite data as a primary source of evidence in research applications that yield actionable results.
Let's explore the groundbreaking research of the four fellows that were selected.
Advancing Disaster Preparedness and Response
Sanaz Vajedian, Materials Science & Technology (MS&T)
Leveraging High-Frequency Planet Imagery and Multi-Sensor Data Fusion for Improved Detection and Analysis of Post-Fire Landslides in Southern California
Vajedian's research aims to enhance landslide detection and prediction following wildfires by integrating near-daily, high-resolution Planet satellite imagery with other datasets like Sentinel-1 SAR and airborne LiDAR. This project seeks to track surface motion and geomorphic changes in burned areas and apply machine learning models to generate high-resolution susceptibility maps.
This research has clear implications for disaster preparedness and response. By generating timely, high-resolution landslide susceptibility maps, agencies can better anticipate risk, prioritize evacuations, and protect critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and pipelines. The ability to rapidly detect and assess post-fire landslides also opens the door to early warning systems, giving state and local governments vital time to act. For agencies like FEMA and state geological surveys, these tools can accelerate recovery and strengthen long-term resilience planning for fire-prone communities.
Enhancing Environmental Monitoring and Enforcement
Maria Juliana Rubiano-Lizarazo, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Mapping the Unseen: High-Resolution Detection of Ghost Roads in the Amazon Using PlanetScope
Rubiano-Lizarazo's project focuses on detecting and mapping unpaved "ghost roads" in the Amazon rainforest of Colombia and Brazil using high-resolution PlanetScope imagery and deep learning. The research aims to quantify the extent and expansion of these roads, assess their impact on deforestation, and analyze their spatial patterns in relation to security dynamics and organized crime indicators.
This research supports efforts in environmental protection, natural resource management, and the fight against illegal deforestation — already a core Planet use case. Mapping hidden ghost roads provides crucial intelligence for enforcement agencies actively working to curb illegal deforestation, with the potential to expand the use of our data for law enforcement and intelligence applications. This project also offers a tool for monitoring protected areas and assessing the effectiveness of conservation efforts, creating opportunities with environmental agencies and NGOs. The ability to identify and map these illicit access points in the supply chain could lead to new compliance and transparency solutions for governments and corporations seeking to ensure responsible sourcing.
Optimizing Agricultural Practices and Sustainability
Yin Liu, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Remote Monitoring and Impact Assessment of Tillage Practices in the U.S. Midwest Using Multi-Source Satellite and Google Street View
Liu's project aims to remotely monitor and assess the impact of tillage practices across the U.S. Midwest using PlanetScope, Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 (HLS), and Sentinel-1 imagery, combined with Google Street View for ground truth data. The goal is to develop a machine learning model to map tillage practices and analyze their relationship with crop yields.
This research directly supports sustainable agriculture and provides data for agricultural compliance monitoring. Government agricultural programs often incentivize sustainable practices like conservation tillage. Planet data combined with the resulting models could be used to verify compliance at scale, leading to new engagements with agricultural departments for monitoring and reporting.
Furthermore, understanding tillage practices and their impact on yields contributes to more accurate crop yield predictions, vital for national and global food security assessments. And because conservation tillage practices contribute to carbon sequestration, the ability to remotely monitor and verify these practices could also open doors to supporting carbon credit programs and other initiatives.
Bernardo Candido, University of Missouri (Mizzou)
PastureCast: Enhancing Grazing Land Management through PlanetScope Data and Machine Learning
Candido's PastureCast project aims to improve grazing land management by providing near-real time, accurate forage biomass estimates using PlanetScope data and machine learning. This will replace existing models and integrate into the Grazing Wedge web platform to offer actionable insights to land managers.
This research directly supports sustainable land management, a priority for government agencies overseeing rangelands, wildlife, and agricultural resources. For agencies like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and state land departments that manage vast tracts of grazing land, providing precise, real-time biomass estimates can help optimize grazing rotations, prevent overgrazing, and improve land health. Accurate pasture biomass data is crucial for assessing drought impacts and building resilience in agricultural communities. While directly targeting land managers, successful integration into platforms like Grazing Wedge could help bring Planet data to a wider agricultural audience, including government extension services providing guidance to farmers and ranchers.
The TGI Planet Fellowship is not just about advancing academic research, it's about investing in the future of geospatial applications. Each of these projects has the potential to deliver practical solutions to real-world challenges, showing the power of Planet data to help build a safer, more resilient world.
For more details on the program, please refer to the official press release from the Taylor Geospatial Institute.
And if you’re interested in using satellite data in your academic research, we encourage you to consider the Planet Education and Research Program, which offers affordable access to our data.
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