Sander Veraverbeke is a remote sensing expert with specific interest in monitoring post-fire effects with spaceborne data from a regional to global perspective. He received his PhD in Geography (specialization remote sensing) in 2010 at the Ghent University (Belgium). The focus of his PhD was to assess the ecological consequences of wildfires by means of remotely sensed time series. Now he is a post-doctoral scholar at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he will elaborate on the remote sensing of post-fire effects in Southern California.

• PhD, Geography, Ghent University (2007-2010)
• Master in Geography, Ghent University, with highest distinction (2005-2007)
• Bachelor in Geography, Ghent University, with highest distinction (2003-2005)

• Spatio-temporal patterns of wildfires
• Remote sensing of wildfire severity
• Remote sensing of post-fire vegetation regeneration

• Post-Doctoral Scholar, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (2011-Present)
• Post-Doctoral Scholar (Ghent University (2010-2011)

• 2009 Best Poster Award, PhD symposium, Ghent University (2009)
• Touring Scientific Award, Best Master Thesis (2007)

1. Veraverbeke, S., Somers, B., Gitas, I., Katagis, T., Polychronaki, A. & Goossens, R. (2012). Spectral mixture analysis to assess post-fire vegetation regeneration using Landsat Thematic mapper imagery: accounting for soil brightness variation. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 14, 1-11.
2. Harris, S., Veraverbeke, S., & Hook, S. (2011). Evaluating spectral indices for assessing fire severity in chaparral ecosystems (southern California) using MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) airborne simulator data. Remote Sensing, 3, 2403-2419.
3. Veraverbeke, S., Harris, S. & Hook, S. (2011). Evaluating spectral indices for burned area discrimination using MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) airborne simulator data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 115, 2702-2709.
4. Veraverbeke, S., Lhermitte, S., Verstraeten, W.W., & Goossens, R. (2011). Evaluation of pre/post-fire differenced spectral indices for assessing burn severity in a Mediterranean environment with Landsat Thematic Mapper. International Journal of Remote Sensing 32, 3521-3537.
5. Veraverbeke, S., Lhermitte, S., Verstraeten, W.W., & Goossens, R., (2011). A time-integrated MODIS burn severity assessment using the multi-temporal differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBRMT). International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation 13, 52-58.
6. Lhermitte, S., Verbesselt, J., Verstraeten, W.W., Veraverbeke, S. & Coppin, P. (2011). Assessment of the intra-annual variation in vegetation regrowth after fire based on the pixel based regeneration index. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 66, 17-27.
7. Veraverbeke, S., Lhermitte, S., Verstraeten, W.W., & Goossens, R., (2010). The temporal dimension of differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) fire/burn severity studies: the case of the large 2007 Peloponnese wildfires in Greece. Remote Sensing of Environment 114, 2548-2563
8. Veraverbeke, S., Verstraeten, W.W., Lhermitte, S., & Goossens, R. (2010). Evaluating Landsat Thematic Mapper spectral indices for estimating burn severity of the 2007 Peloponnese wildfires in Greece. International Journal of Wildland Fire 19, 558-569
9. Veraverbeke, S., Verstraeten, W.W., Lhermitte, S. & Goossens, R. (2010). Illumination effects on the differenced Normalized Burn Ratio's optimality for assessing fire severity. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 12, 60-70