// systems_scientist · applied_ai_researcher

Evaluating AI where it actually breaks — fragmented data, first-mile supply chains, real-world systems.

Spatial intelligence, consensus analysis, and human-in-the-loop AI evaluation — catching hallucinations and failure modes before they reach decisions.

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01About

I work where knowledge graphs end — in origin communities, smallholder networks, and first-mile supply chains where fragmented data, not production capacity, is what limits decisions. I bring three capabilities that trade flow data alone cannot provide: spatial intelligence linking supply chain nodes to land cover and environmental systems; consensus analysis measuring whether actors genuinely share standards or only appear to; and human-in-the-loop AI evaluation catching hallucinations and failure modes before they reach decisions.

02What I do

eval

Human-in-the-loop AI evaluation

I identify where AI models break down — hallucinations, misrepresentations, misclassifications — and design structured frameworks to catch and correct them before outputs reach decisions. Applied across NLP pipelines, ESG datasets, supply-chain analytics, and spatial systems.

spatial

Spatial intelligence & first-mile systems

I link supply chain actors to land cover change, ocean systems, and environmental data at scales from local fishing communities to global commodity flows. I know what first-mile data looks like versus what gets reported — and where that gap creates compliance and decision risk.

consensus

Consensus & standards analysis

I use cultural consensus methods to measure whether actors genuinely share beliefs, standards, or practices — or only appear to. Applied to sustainability certification, ESG alignment, and supply chain governance. Predicts where enforcement gaps will emerge before they do.

leadership

Applied research leadership

Led research teams and developed research agendas across academic and applied settings, including programs at NYU Stern and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Deep familiarity with compliance frameworks: EUDR, SASB, TNFD, SEC Reg S-K, UNDP SDGs. Secured ~$1M in competitive grants across NSF, NASA, RWJ Foundation, and others.

03Experience

2021 — Present

Founder & Director

Sustainable Systems Lab
  • Built an AI-enabled supply-chain platform structuring data across producers, logistics, and buyers — connecting a network of primary producers to global markets and enabling visibility and coordination across previously siloed actors.
  • Conducted cross-actor analysis of field, transactional, and stakeholder data to identify structural information gaps, informing system features that improved coordination and direct market access for 107 seafood supply chains.
  • Used AI tools to design and deliver a spatial analytics curriculum across 5 modules for Arizona State University's Institute for Social Science Research — enabling scalable, self-paced learning in geospatial analysis.
  • Facilitated a multi-stakeholder workshop with ~50 leaders using structured decision frameworks to translate sustainability goals into supply-chain strategies, aligning industry and governance actors around shared operational processes.
2017 — 2021

Director of Academic Research | Research Associate Professor

NYU Stern School of Business – Center for Sustainable Business
  • Led ESG analytics programs using relational databases and performance models to convert sustainability data into decision-relevant systems, enabling Russell 1000 firms to evaluate outcomes alongside financial and organizational metrics.
  • Developed job-quality metrics by operationalizing ten resilience-focused workforce indicators (security, viability, equity, and flexibility), enabling labor outcomes to be evaluated alongside financial and sustainability performance within ESG datasets.
  • Designed two cultural consensus studies (~50 questions) to compare shared beliefs with operational decisions, revealing how unrepresented intangible value constrains innovation and value creation.
2014 — 2017

Senior Scholar

Stockholm Resilience Centre – Stockholm University
  • Applied network and spatial analysis across one national and one international governance and production dataset to map sustainability system relationships and identify drivers of effective governance across ecological and organizational contexts.
  • Built two-mode behavioral networks linking 106 fishers, species, and land cover to analyze cross-scale dynamics — revealing land-fisheries linkages across 11 fishing communities in a ~200 km region of southern Chile spanning 17 fisheries management areas, and scaling the analysis to explain fisheries catches at the national level.
2010 — 2014

Assistant Professor

East Carolina University
  • Developed machine learning approaches using functional representations of land systems across local (~200 km) and regional (~1,200 km) scales to classify landscape patterns — revealing behavioral patterns of fishers across 45 fishery management areas not observable from spectral data alone.
  • Applied cultural consensus and expert-effect models to survey and field data to distinguish shared vs. expert-driven knowledge, enabling analysis of decision-making patterns in complex social systems.
Postdoctoral

Research Scientist / Postdoctoral Scholar

Office of Naval Research – MURI
  • Built an NLP/LLM pipeline processing all 2003–2010 news articles from the Sudan Tribune to extract and geolocate conflict events among 42 ethnic groups, enabling spatial analysis that revealed environmental drivers of conflict across Sudan and South Sudan.
  • Designed and benchmarked NLP pipelines: semi-automated methods achieved ~88% precision vs. ~38% for fully automated — quantifying the precision gap and the value of human-in-the-loop design.

04Technical skills

Methods

Spatial Analysis (GIS, Remote Sensing) Network Analysis NLP / LLM Pipelines Machine Learning Model Evaluation & Validation Human-in-the-Loop Design

Tools & Platforms

Python SQL ArcGIS Tableau UCINET Atlas.ti SPSS Claude ChatGPT

05Research impact

31+
publications
~4,000
citations
22
h-index
~$1M
grant funding

06Background

Ph.D. & M.S., Interdisciplinary Ecology — University of Florida (2009)
Fulbright Scholar · NASA Fellow · David Boren Fellow (DoD) · Rotary Scholar

B.S., Biochemistry — SUNY Stony Brook

Field Research: Chile · Brazil · Bolivia · Indonesia · Madagascar · Sweden

Off-site Research (data & remote analysis): Sri Lanka · Rwanda · Sudan & South Sudan

Languages: Spanish (fluent) · Portuguese & Swedish (conversational) · Mapudugun & Guarayo (working knowledge)