G E O S W I R L

Equally at home in the field or the office, we combine field- and remote-based measurements of snow, water, and ice with quantitative analysis and modeling to better understand water resources in Montana and beyond. Our approach is inherently geospatial, with a focus on how snow, water, and ice change across space and time.

Our lab group is comprised of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students + plus collaborators on and off campus.

We are based in Montana and currently have projects in North America, Chile, and Finland.

I integrate GIScience and remote sensing with field-based measurements and models to better understand the geospatial and climatic controls on the world’s water resources. My efforts focus primarily on snow, and span the climates and cultures of the western United States and South America. I have been fortunate to develop bilingual collaborations across disciplines to address complex socio-environmental questions related to water resources.

I am also the Director of the  Geospatial Core Facility , an integrated hub for all things geospatial on campus and beyond that actively supports Montana State University's long-standing commitment to integrating discovery, learning, and community engagement.

Prior to joining the faculty at Montana State University, I was a research hydrologist at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Áridas in La Serena, Chile. I also had formal mentorship in hydrology as a post-doctoral fellow at the Western Ecology Division of the EPA, through a fellowship from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Engineering. I earned a PhD in Water Resources Science and a graduate minor in Water Resource Conflict Transformation from Oregon State University.

Jackson Rose is Geospatial Research Analyst working in the Geospatial Core Facility at Montana State University. In addition to teaching responsibilities within the department of Earth Sciences, Jackson's role includes implementing and overseeing geospatial research projects in collaboration with various public and private organizations.

Jackson is a certified GIS professional (GISP) who earned a master's degree from MSU in 2020. Jackson's research looked at rural communities that host large-scale underground mining projects, with a focus on non-regulatory agreements between communities and international mining companies. Born and raised in Montana, Jackson can typically be found on the river or in the mountains when not in the office.

Duilio is a Chilean physicist and physics teacher, having graduated from the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia. His passion for the mountains and his concern about the impact of climate change on Chilean water resources inspired him to study the Andes Cordillera glaciers. He possesses extensive experience in glacier modeling and coding solutions for GIS analysis. Duilio has also participated in scientific campaigns in Chilean Patagonian glaciers and the rock glaciers of the Peruvian Central Cordillera. In 2023, he relocated to Bozeman to pursue a PhD at the GeoSWIRL Lab. Currently, he is supported by a Montana NASA EPSCoR grant with the goal of enhancing remote sensing albedo products from LANDSAT missions. To achieve this, he is researching snowpacks in Montana and Finland, as well as the glacier surface of the Greenland ice sheet. He is also collaborating on the NASA C-SWOT project. With field sites in Montana and Chile, SWOT focuses on quantifying the changing volumes of freshwater across the globe. Duilio's interests lie in understanding the impact of climate change on the cryosphere and water resources, and as a teacher, he is dedicated to science communication and addressing the social aspects of climate change.

Simon is a PhD student in Earth Sciences, where he also works as a Research Associate at Montana State University's Central Agricultural Research Center. Simon’s research combines optical and microwave remote sensing to characterize snow and soil moisture at high spatial and temporal resolutions in active agricultural fields, with the goal of documenting the beneficial impacts of crop diversification and fallow-replacement on soil water retention in wheat-dominated systems. Simon received both his B.S. and M.S. from the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at MSU, during which time he studied nitrogen retention strategies in farming systems of central Montana. Simon’s great-grandparents homesteaded in central Montana in the late 1800s, and his family still today operates a cattle ranch on the homesteaded land. Based near Moccasin, less than 30 miles from the Fordyce ranch, Simon has deep ties to the area and is committed to fortifying local and regional agriculture by researching and promoting sustainable practices.

Bree is a PhD student in the Department of Earth Sciences where she studies snow & water supply through various methods. As part of a Bureau of Reclamation funded project, Bree is working to improve current remote sensing technologies so that communities can better prepare for natural disasters such as floods and droughts. Bree also works for the USDA-NRCS as a Soil Conservation/GIS Specialist, covering fourteen of Montana's counties, where she assists field offices with conservation on the ground. Born and raised in Oregon, she started her academic career by earning a Bachelor of Science from the University of Oregon and then a Master of Science from Montana State University, where she studied hydric soil development post-stream restoration. In between these degrees, she served in the US Peace Corps as an Agricultural Extension Officer in West Africa. Bree still actively volunteers by serving on her local mountain bike association board The Dirt Concern as their resident natural resource specialist, cartographer, and women's event coordinator. She is excited to be furthering her scientific capacity to give back to her local community.

Hailing from Bavaria, Andrea's passion for nature, mountains, and the outdoors, both in winter and summer led her to pursue a degree in Geography at the University of Innsbruck, following a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration at LMU Munich. During her Master's studies, Andrea specialized in Physical Geography, focusing mainly on the study of natural hazards such as avalanches and snow modeling. Andrea was a mountain rescuer with the Mountain Rescue Bavaria and has field experience in the Alps, Iceland, and Svalbard.

With GeoSWIRL, Andrea's PhD research focuses on how snowpack properties and the frequency and character of avalanches. This USGS-funded project will also shed insights into how avalanches may change across space and time in the future and identify the primary drivers of this variability.

Kyla is a Master's student in Earth Sciences with research focusing on snow accumulation and ablation patterns based on canopy cover in Sourdough Canyon. Kyla earned a BS in geography at the University of Colorado, along with a minor in anthropology and a certificate in GIS and computational science in the spring of 2023. She also was a research assistant for the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) and USGS working on the Arctic Rivers Project during 2022. Kyla looks forward to contributing to the research of snow as a water resource as member of the GeoSWIRL team. In her free time Kyla is also on Montana State University Cross Country and Track teams. Outside Interests: Trail running, cycling, skiing, and pet rabbit, Flops.

Growing up in Helena, Montana, TJ developed a fascination with snow and water, particularly as sources of recreational enjoyment. This passion led him to pursue a bachelor's degree in Snow Science from Montana State, where he also discovered a keen interest in GIScience tools and programming. As of January 2023, TJ is pursuing a master's degree in Earth Science. His primary focus within this field is to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the recently launched Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. He concentrates specifically on its applications in terrestrial hydrology, with a strong emphasis on the behavior of steeply sloped large rivers. TJ's research is supported by a NASA Terrestrial Hydrology Program grant.

Erich grew up in Colorado where he gained an interest in mountain environments and snow science. This combination brought him to Bozeman, where he received a bachelor's degree in Snow Science in 2018. After years of working in drought-stricken areas of the American West, Erich joined the GeoSWIRL team to investigate water availability from seasonal snow in data-scarce mountain regions. 

Graduate

Ross Palomaki (PhD, 2023) Advancing Airborne and Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar Measurements of Ice and SnowMeasurements

First position after MSU - Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado - Boulder.

Lila Rickenbaugh (MS, 2023) When and Where does Irrigation Water Originate? Leveraging Stable Water Isotopes and Synthetic Aperture Radar to Assess the Complex Hydrology of a Snow Dominated Catchment in Southwestern Montana

First position after MSU - NextGen Advisory Board - Gallatin Valley Land Trust.

Madeline Beck (MS, 2023) Modeling Snow Water Equivalent in Complex Mountain Terrain

First position after MSU - Ski patrol at Bridger Bowl

Alex Haddad (MS, 2023) A Framework for the Quantitative Assessment of New Data Streams in Avalanche Forecasting 

First position after MSU - Avalanche Forecaster in Jackson Hole, Wyoming

Nata de Leeuw (MS, 2023) Meteorological Controls on Wind Slab Properties 

Zachary Miller (MS, 2021) Snow Depth Distribution and Spatial Variability in Complex Mountain Terrain

First position after MSU - Physical Scientist at the USGS' Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center in Glacier National Park.

Andrew Mullen (MS 2021) An operational methodology for validating satellite-based snow albedo measurements using a UAV (MS 2021)

First position after MSU - Research Assistant at Woodwell Climate Research Center. Check out Andrew's publications.

Undergraduate

Sam Neitlich (BS 2022) First position after MSU - Geospatial scientist and programmer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory with the NISAR Team.

Maddy Grubb (BS 2022) First position after MSU - Physical geographer at Grand Teton National Park.

Melissa Widas (BS 2022) First position after MSU - Graduate student in Environmental Data Science at UC Santa Barbara.

Mathew Grushkin (BS 2020) First position after MSU - Aircraft Dispatcher with Republic Airways.

Palomaki R. T., Sproles, E. A. (2023). Assessment of L-band InSAR snow estimation techniques over a shallow, heterogeneous prairie snowpack. Remote Sensing of Environment. 296, 113744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113744

Woodley, M., Sproles, E.A., Eberly, J., Tuttle, S. (in prep). Viability of Cosmic Ray Neutron Sensing for Estimating Snow Water Equivalent in a Prairie Environment. Water Resources Research.

Miller, Z. S., Peitzsch, E. H.,Sproles, E. A., Birkeland, K. W., Palomaki, R. T. (2022). Assessing the Seasonal Evolution of Snow Depth Spatial Variability and Scaling in Complex Mountain Terrain. The Cryosphere, 16(12), 49074930. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-4907-202219. Mullen, A.; Sproles, E. A.; Hendrikx, J.; Shaw, J.; Gatebe, C. K. (2022) An operational methodology for validating satellite-based snow albedo measurements using a UAV. Front. Remote Sens. , doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/frsen.2021.767593.

Sproles, E. A., Mullen, A. L., Hendrikx, J., Gatebe, C., Taylor, S. (2020)  Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (AAVs) as a Tool for Improving the Spatial Resolution of Snow Albedo Measurements in Mountainous Regions . Hydrology: v. 7 i. 3

Nolin, A. W.; Sproles, E. A.; Rupp, D. E.; Crumley, R. L.; Webb, M. J.; Palomaki, R. T.; Mar, E. (2021) New snow metrics for a warming world. Hydrol. Process. , 35, e14262, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.14262.

Crumley, R. L., Palomaki, R. T., Nolin, A. W., Sproles, E. A., & Mar, E. J. (2020). SnowCloudMetrics: Snow information for everyone. Remote Sensing, 12(20). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12203341

Sproles, E. A., Crumley, R. L., Nolin, A. W., Mar, E., & Moreno, J. I. L. (2018). SnowCloudHydro—A New Framework for Forecasting Streamflow in Snowy, Data-Scarce Regions. Remote Sensing, 10(8), 1276. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10081276

Palomaki R. T., Sproles, E. A. (2022). Quantifying the Effect of River Ice Surface Roughness on Sentinel-1 SAR Backscatter. Remote Sensing. 14(22):5644. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14225644

MacDonell, S., Núñez, P., Aliste, V., Ayala, A., Gúzman, P., Jofré, P.,Schaffer, N., Schauwecker, S., Sproles, E. A., Yáñez, E. (2023). Snow and ice in the desert: reflections from a decade of connecting cryospheric science with communities in the semiarid Chilean Andes. Annals of Glaciology. 1-7. doi:10.1017/aog.2023.51

Sproles, E. A., Centeno, A., Grubb, M. Schaffer, N., MacDonell, S., Hevia, A (in review). The geo-complexity and internal hydrologic framework of the semi-arid Río Elqui headwaters in northerncentral Chile. Journal of Maps.

Valois, R., Araya Vargas, J., MacDonell, S., Guzmán Pinones, C., Fernandoy, F., Yánez Carrizo, G., et al. (2021). Improving the underground structural characterization and hydrological functioning of an Andean peatland using geoelectrics and water stable isotopes in semi-arid Chile. Environmental Earth Sciences, 80(1), 41. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-020-09331-6

Snow Albedo - the data and code associated with Mullen et al. (2022) is available can be found at data doi:  10.5281/zenodo.5338942  code:  https://github.com/GEOSWRL/UAV-albedo.git .

River Ice - Palomaki, T. iceroughness_RF (v1.0.0). 2022. Available online:  https://zenodo.org/record/7296543#.Y2ofkORBw2w .