Vanessa Escobar

Biography

Vanessa M. Escobar is NASA’s Headquarters Missions Applications and Flight Executive for the Applied Science Program where she is implementing a new Directive that will include the needs of end users and stakeholders in the development of Earth Science Mission designs. Previous to her role at Headquarters Ms. Escobar lead application efforts for the SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) mission and for the ICESat-2 Mission. Ms. Escobar also held develop the science and stakeholder applications for NASA’s Carbon Monitoring Systems Initiative at Goddard Space Flight Center. Ms. Escobar facilitates and translates discussions across scientific and political boundaries related to water resource management, risk, hydrology, remote sensing, public policy, carbon science and decision support frameworks. Her research is geared towards analyzing the sensitivity of earth science data in operational modeling systems, evaluating the value of information in decision support structures and applying that knowledge to areas of societal benefit. Ms. Escobar works closely with the emergency response community, the reinsurance community, and the wine/viticulture industry to help scale and improve the use of remote sensing observations for efficient use of resources and business management practices.