CV

Education

• Ph.D in Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR (expected 2025)
• M.S. in Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 2021
• B.A., Bowdoin College, 2011

Honors and Grants

• NASA Future Investigator in Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST)
  • Fully funded PhD improving our capacity to observe changes to surface water from spaceborne instruments.
• Rippey Dissertation Writing Fellowship (2025)
• AGU Outstanding Student Paper Award – Biogeosciences Division
• AGU Outstanding Student Paper Award – Hydrology Division
• Graduate Student Research Grant, Geological Society of America
  • Recognition and financial support for a field campaign to Alaska validating satellite observations.
• Rippey Award (x2), University of Oregon Department of Geography
  • Support for fieldwork on the Sandy River in 2020.
  • Support for computing costs in 2023.
• Riley Research Award, Bowdoin College Department of Anthropology
  • $2,094 towards reserach on the boat building industry’s adaptations in Maine.
• Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar
  • Recognition designated for students ranking iwthin the top 20% of their undergraduate class.
• Total Funding Awarded: $161,894.00

Professional Experience

• NASA Graduate Student Fellow, University of Oregon (2023-Present)
• Graduate Research Assistant, University of Oregon (2021-2023)
• Instructor, Rios to Rivers Paddle Tribal Waters Program, Klamath River Basin (2024)
• Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Oregon (2019-2021)
• Math and Science Teacher, The Sage School, Hailey, ID (2016-2019)
• Mathematics Teaching Fellow, Maine Coast Semester, Wiscasset, ME (2015-2016)
• Whitewater Kayaking Coach, Jackson Hole Kayak Club (2019)
• Trip Leader, Overland Summers, Alaska, Switzerland, Colorado, New England (2013-2016)

Publications

Submitted and In Prep

• Levenson. E.S. (in prep). SWOT Performance Assessment and Multi-Sensor Enhancements for Water Storage Monitoring.
• Levenson. E.S., S.W. Cooley (in prep). The timing and magnitude of pan-Arctic lake variability.
• Simpson, A., E.S. Levenson, L. Karlstrom, S.W. Cooley. (submitted). Hydrologic Implications of Seasonally Draining Lakes in the Central Oregon Cascades. Water Resources Research.
• Webb, E.E., S.W. Cooley, E.S. Levenson, J. Maze. (submitted). Discrepancies in Arctic-Boreal lake area trends driven by sensitivity to dry conditions. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences.
• Webb E.E., S.W. Cooley, E.S. Levenson. (submitted). Temporal bias in Landsat-derived surface water trends. Nature.
• Cooley, S.W., E.E. Webb, E.S. Levenson, J.C. Ryan. (submitted). Lakes modify the magnitude and timing of the Northern Hemisphere Terrestrial Cyrosphere Radiative Effect. PNAS.

Published

• Levenson. E.S., S.W. Cooley, A. Mullen, E.E. Webb, J.D. Watts. (2025). Glacial history modifies permafrost controls on the distribution of lakes and ponds. Geophysical Research Letters.
• Pletcher, A., S.W. Cooley, E.S. Levenson (accepted 2025). Observing fine-scale lake ice breakup dynamics in the Lower Kuskokwim River Basin, Alaska. Hydrological Processes.
• Levenson, E.S., Cooley, S. W., & Mullen, A. (2025). ABoVE: Alaska Lake and Pond Occurrence. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2399
• Mullen. A., J. D. Watts, B. M. Rogers M. L. Carroll, C.D. Elder, J. Noomah, Z. Williams, A. Bredder, E. Rickenbaugh, J. A. Caraballo-Vega, E.S Levenson, S.W. Cooley, S. Potter, Y. Yang, G. Fiske, C.E. Miller, S.M. Natali , T.A Douglas, E.D Kyzivat. (2023). Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery and Deep Learning to Track Dynamic Seasonality in Small Water Bodies. Geophysical Research Letters, 50(7).
• Levenson, E.S., and Fonstad M.A. (2022). Characterizing coarse sediment grain size variability along the upper Sandy River, Oregon, via UAV remote sensing, Geomorphology, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2022.108447
• Chafe, O. E., Broz, A. P., Levenson, E. S., Farinacci, M. D., Anderson, R. O., & Silva, L. C. (2024). The spatiotemporal domains of natural climate solutions research and strategies for implementation in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Frontiers in Climate, 6, 1273632.

Selected Presentations

• Levenson, E.S., S.W. Cooley, E.E. Webb, C. Kluetmeier. Improved SWOT surface water storage monitoring through multi-sensor harmonization. SWOT Science Team Meeting. October 2025.
• Levenson, E.S., S.W. Cooley, A. Mullen, E. Webb, J. Watts. Glacial History Modifies Permafrost Controls on the Distribution of Arctic-Boreal Lakes and Ponds. AGU Fall meeting. Oral Presentation. 2024.
• Levenson, E.S., S.W. Cooley. The Timing and Magnitude of Pan-Arctic Seasonal Lake Area fluctuations from 2016-2021. AGU Fall meeting. Poster Presentation. 2024.
• Levenson, E.S., Cooley, S.W., Mullen, A., Van Dusen, I., Analyzing local to regional scale patterns in surface water variability and their interaction with permafrost using a new high resolution Alaska lake database, AGU Fall meeting, Poster Presentation. 2023.
• Levenson, E.S., Cooley, S.W., Mullen, A., Lake distribution and dynamics in the Alaskan Arctic from 2016-2021, AGU Fall meeting, Poster Presentation. 2022.
• Cooley, S.W., Levenson, E.S., Leveraging novel satellite technologies to better understand permafrost-surface water feedbacks. Invited Oral Presentation. 2022.
• Van Dusen, I., Cooley, S.W., Levenson, E.S., Assessing the Accuracy of Planet and Sentinel-2 Derived Water Maps through in situ GNSS Validation. Oral Presentation. 2022.
• Levenson, E.S. Remotely sensed grain-size distributions at high resolutions and across large extents reveals that bar-scale position modulates grain-size response to channel width within the upper Sandy River, Oregon. AGU Fall meeting. Oral Presentation. 2021.
• Levenson, E.S. Hyperscale sediment grain-size mapping and sorting in relation to channel morphology. American Association of Geographers. Poster Presentation. 2021.
• Levenson, E.S. Methodological approaches to fluvial grain-size remote sensing. Bretz Club Mini-Conference. 2021.

Invited Seminars

• AGU Biogeosciences Early Career Seminar, “Glacial History Modifies Permafrost Controls on the Distribution of Lakes and Ponds”
• USGS Water Mission Area, “Mapping Alaska’s Lakes and Ponds and Their Permafrost Interactions”
• Alaska Geospatial Council “Hydrography Working Group, The Alaska Lake and Pond Occurrence Dataset, and novel SWOT applications for the future of Alaska Hydrology”

Service and leadership

• SWOT River Science Working Group
• Graduate Representative to the UO Geography Diversity Committee (2022-2023)
• President, UO Chapter of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Senssing (2022-2024)
• Wilderness First Responder
• Swift Water Rescue
• AIARE Level 1 Avalanche Safety