UC Santa Barbara geographer Dar Roberts has been named a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). He is among 60 new fellows acknowledged for “their remarkable contributions to their research fields, exceptional knowledge and visionary leadership.”

Roberts was cited for developing spectral mixing models and driving pixel-based interpretations of remote sensing data to solve environmental problems. He is best known for the development of Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis (MESMA), which has been widely used to map impervious surface areas in urban regions and plant species in anthropo-
genic and natural environments and snow-covered areas; grain size and sediment concentrations in rivers; and kelp in the coastal environment. MESMA has also been used to estimate fire temperatures, area and severity.

“Given the kind of research I do, I wasn’t expecting this to happen,” said Roberts, a professor in UCSB’s Department of Geography. “I was excited when I found out that I had been named an AGU fellow. It’s quite an honor.”