What I’m Building Now

Lgnd.io

AI-powered Earth intelligence search engine

We spend billions launching satellites, yet lack the tools to actually read the data they send back. Lgnd removes the blindfold. We structure the chaos of raw imagery so AI can finally “read” the Earth — spotting environmental threats, from illegal logging to flood risks, before they become irreversible.

The key insight: Earth intelligence doesn’t require re-running expensive models for every query. It requires a great Index. Simple proximity lookups on geo-embeddings are enough to find most things — what we call the Linear Bet.

  • Website: lgnd.io
  • Backed by top investors, including the creators of Google Earth

Clay — AI for Earth

Open-source foundation model for Earth observation

Clay is the leading open-source foundation model for Earth observation, built as a non-profit. The model is trained on petabytes of satellite imagery and produces rich geo-embeddings that power downstream applications — from flood detection to crop monitoring — without requiring access to raw pixels.

The Clay model and embeddings are free for anyone to use. We ensure the tools to understand and protect the Earth are in the hands of the many, not the few.

Previous Work

Microsoft Planetary Computer (2020–2023)

Program Director — $50M+ global initiative

Founded and led the Planetary Computer: a platform combining petabytes of global environmental datasets with scalable compute and open-source tools (STAC, Dask, Pangeo). Supported 800+ projects across climate science, biodiversity, water resources, and agriculture.

World Bank Group (2015–2020)

Data Scientist & Senior Consultant

Technical lead for advanced analytics at the World Bank Innovation Labs. Led the Development Data Partnership — enabling 50+ data companies to partner with the World Bank for development impact. Worked across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on satellite analytics for poverty mapping and transport modeling.

Satellogic (2017–2019)

VP Social Impact

Designed and led Satellogic’s Social Impact strategy, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Launched the Open Impact program with the World Bank and Stanford University — providing open data and open-source tools to lower barriers to using high-resolution and hyperspectral satellite imagery.

Mapbox (2013–2015 · Science Advisor 2015–2020)

Chief Scientist

Integrated scientific and data-driven approaches into product development. Led science talent growth as the company scaled from ~20 to ~100 people. Co-developed foundational mapping algorithms still in use today. Continued as Science Advisor through 2020, overlapping with the World Bank years.

Global Adaptation Institute (2011–2013)

Director of Science & Technology

Led the GAIN Index — measuring climate vulnerability and adaptation readiness across 192 countries. Became the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative after my tenure.

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (2008–2010)

Postdoctoral Researcher, Space Science Division

Research on solar physics, space weather, and Sun-Earth interactions. Contributed to satellite instrumentation including UV spectrograph calibration.

Impact Science Advisory

Through ImpactScience.dev, I advise organizations on applying science, data, and AI to achieve measurable environmental and social outcomes — from sovereign AI strategy to due diligence on geospatial investments.