David Chaparro was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, in 1988. He received the degree on Biology (2011), a M.Sc. in Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (2012), a M.Sc. in Terrestrial Ecology (2013). He received the PhD (2018) on Remote Sensing (Telecommunication Engineering) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC; Barcelona).
His research activity is based on remote sensing for Earth observation, with emphasis on the applicability of microwave radiometers and optical sensors on environmental research. Within this framework, he has modelled drought-derived forest decline events, analysed the sensitivity of microwave frequencies to carbon stocks, and developed fire risk assessment tools. Also, he has studied the relationship between passive microwaves and the phenology and yield of croplands. In 2012 he developed part of his M.S. Thesis at the Spanish Research Council (CSIC), working on fire risk assessment using satellite soil moisture data. His work was put into operational use by the forest rangers of the Barcelona regional government. In 2017 he was a visiting PhD student at the Bioeconomy-Sustainable Resources unit of the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Union (Ispra, Italy). At the JRC he worked on the relationship between passive microwaves and carbon stocks in tropical forests. Now, he has been awarded with the “José Castillejo fellowship” (Spanish government) funding his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). There, he has worked on estimating relative water content (RWC) of vegetation, and explored new frameworks to apply satellite data to the study of the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC).
David Chaparro has published 6 papers in international peer-review journals, 2 book chapters and 8 conference papers. He has presented 6 oral communications in international conferences. He has been awarded with the 2017 Remote Sensing Journal travel award from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). He has advised two master theses. He is also a reviewer of the journals Global Change Biology, Remote Sensing of Environment, Remote Sensing, and IEEE JSTARS, as well as of the Microrad conference.