Sophie
Ruehr
Sophie Ruehr studies water-carbon coupling in terrestrial ecosystems. Using remote sensing, biophysical modeling, and machine learning, she quantifies the effect of management practices on surface fluxes, with the goal of supporting climate mitigation and adaptation solutions. At Carnegie, she will investigate the impacts of sustainable agriculture on water cycling and crop yield within the Rosa and Dukes labs.
CV
Carnegie Institution for Science
2025 – Max Plank-Caltech-Carnegie-Columbia (MC3) Earth Center Post-Doctoral Fellow in Land Surface Modeling
University of California Berkeley
2025 – Post-Doctoral Researcher, Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Water and carbon cycle science, terrestrial ecosystem analysis and observation, near-surface and satellite remote sensing, sensor development, ecohydrology, sustainable food systems, water management, land-atmosphere interactions, climate solutions and resilience, inclusive research methods.
Max Plank-Caltech-Carnegie-Columbia MC3 4 Earth Center Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2025–present
NASA Future Investigators in Earth and Space Science and Technology Fellowship, 2022–2025
Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Fellowship, 2020–2022
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program Honorable Mention, 2022
New England Newspaper Association, First Place: Science/Technology Reporting, 2021
New England Newspaper Association, First Place: Health Reporting, 2021
Yale University Parker Huang Undergraduate Travel Fellowship, 2018–2019
Yale University Dept. of Geology & Geophysics Hammer Prize, 2018
Yale University Karen Von Damm 1977 Fellowship, 2017
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellowship, 2017
Committees & Management
UC Berkeley Dept. ESPM Field Safety Committee, 2024–2025
UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources LGBTQ+ Coalition, 2020–2023
AmeriFlux Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee, 2020–2024
UC Berkeley Dept. ESPM Graduate Diversity Council, 2020–2024
Reviewing
Regular reviewer for Nature Communications, PNAS, Science Advances, One Earth, Geophysical Research Letters, Agricultural & Forest Meteorology, Nature Communications Earth & Environment, Hydrology, Earth’s Future, AGU Advances, & Journal of Arid Environments
Guest lectures
2025 – “Land Surface Modeling” in ESPM 111, Carbon Cycle Dynamics, UC Berkeley
2024 – “Remote Sensing of the Biosphere” in EPS 251, Ecosystem Science, UC Berkeley
Courses
2024 – Graduate Student Instructor, Ecosystem Science, led by Prof. Dennis Baldocchi
Centers
2020-2024 – Data Consultant for R, Python, Google Earth Engine, UC Berkeley D-Lab
First author oral presentations
Ecohydrology insights for water resource management in agroecosystems (invited), December 2025, American Geophysical Union Fall Conference, Frontiers in Ecohydrology.
Understanding and supporting resilient ecosystems (invited), August 2025, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, Livermore, CA.
Emerging satellite products unveil cropland water use efficiency trends and drivers in California’s Central Valley, December 2024, American Geophysical Fall Meeting, Washington DC, USA.
Evidence and attribution of the land carbon sink’s historic enhancement (invited), October 2023, Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany.
Groundwater drought decreases carbon fixation in a semi-arid oak savannah, September 2023, CREAF, Barcelona, Spain.
Hyperspectral imagery illuminates drivers of solar-induced fluorescence across landscapes, December 2022, American Geophysical Fall Meeting, Washington DC, USA.
Groundwater drought decreases carbon fixation in a semi-arid oak savannah, December 2022, American Geophysical Fall Meeting, Chicago IL, USA.
Quantifying ecosystem reliance on groundwater, December 2021, American Geophysical Fall Meeting, New Orleans LA, USA.
Carbon emissions and offsets: Global and local research (invited), August 2021, Distinguished Speaker at ARCS Forward National Speaker Series.
Incorporating stakeholder feedback in paleoclimatology research, 2019, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution MA, USA.
Tracing ancient cyclones: paleoclimate, oral history & climate futures (invited), November 2018, University of the South Pacific Emalus Campus, Vanuatu.
The oasis effect: evaluating intrinsic biophysical mechanism theory and its implications for sustainable water management in Zhangye, Gansu, China, May 2018, Yale University CT, USA.
Intrinsic Biophysical Mechanism Theory & the Oasis Effect, March 2018, Key Laboratory of West China’s Environmental System, Lanzhou University, Gansu, China.
Exploring the Oasis Effect with Land Surface Modeling (invited), March 2018, School of Geography, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
First author posters
Evidence and attribution of the land carbon sink’s historic enhancement, December 2023, American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, Chicago IL, USA.
Picturing SIF: field readiness and initial results from a novel SIF imaging instrument, December 2021, American Geophysical Fall Meeting, New Orleans LA, USA.
Latent heat drives cooling over oases, December 2020, American Geophysical Fall Meeting.
Newfound aspects of ancient hurricanes: reconstructing storm intensity and sediment deposition dynamics in northeastern coastal ponds, August 2017, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, MA, USA.
2025 – Identity-Based Risks in Field Work, UC Berkeley, CA
2024 – Center for Climate Sciences Summer School, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, Pasadena, CA
2024 – Spring Teaching Conference, UC Berkeley, CA
2024 – FieldFutures Harassment Prevention Training, UC Berkeley, CA
2024 – DroneCamp, CSU Monterey Bay, CA
2022 – Field Safety Workshop, AmeriFlux
2022 – FluxCourse, AmeriFlux at Niwot Ridge Long-term Ecological Research Program, CO
University of California Berkeley
Ph.D. – Environmental Science, Policy & Management – 2025
Yale University
B.Sc. – Geology & Geophysics – 2018
Provincetown Independent
2019–2020
Newspaper Staff Reporter
Provincetown, MA USA
University of the South Pacific
2018–2019
Yale University Huang Fellow
Port Vila, Vanuatu
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
2017
Summer Student Fellow
Woods Hole, MA USA
Provincetown Banner
2016
Newspaper Staff Reporter
Provincetown, MA USA
2025 – Max Plank-Caltech-Carnegie-Columbia MC3 4 Earth Center: Postdoctoral Fellowship in Land-Surface Modeling ($82,500 annually, up to 4 years)
2025–2026 – University of California Berkeley Chancellor’s Advisory Committee: Improving field safety and inclusion in ESPM ($54,000)
2025–2026 – University of California Berkeley Be Smart About Safety Grant: Field safety through improved emergency communications and training ($25,000)
2022–2025 – NASA FINESST (Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology): Quantifying ecosystem reliance on groundwater, Co-PI Ruehr ($150,000)
2022 – FLUXNET Early Career Secondment: Quantifying ecosystem reliance on groundwater with eddy covariance and sap flow data ($7,400)
2020 – University of California Berkeley Carol Baird Fieldwork Grant: Using hyperspectral imagery at Sagehen Experimental Forest to quantify ecosystem groundwater use ($33,000)
2020 – Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Graduate Student Fellowship: Graduate funding for 2 years ($100,000)
2018 – Yale University Parker Huang Undergraduate Travel Fellowship: Oral history in Vanuatu to support paleoclimate research ($36,000)
2017 – Yale University Karen Von Damm 1977 Fellowship: In support of senior honors thesis field research in Lanzhou, China ($5,000)
2017 – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Summer Student Fellowship: Hurricane paleoclimatology research ($8,000)
Current
Eden Gonzalez, UC Berkeley undergraduate student, 2023–
Jackson Coldiron, UC Santa Barbara master’s student, 2024-–
Past
Adam Rashid, UC Berkeley undergraduate student (now: MIT PhD student), 2023–2024
Megan Hur, UC Berkeley undergraduate student (now: NASA Goddard research assistant), 2022–2024
Tyler Goldstein, UC Berkeley undergraduate (now: UC Berkeley science communications), 2021–2023
(See Google Scholar Profile for updates)
Published (2015–present)
- Ruehr S, Gerlein-Safdi C, Falco N, Seibert P, Chou C, Albert L, Keenan TF. 2024. Quantifying seasonal and diurnal cycles of solar-induced fluorescence. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, 14. 10.1029/2023GL107429.
- Ruehr S, Keenan TF, Williams C, Zhou Y, Lu X, Bastos A, Canadell P, Prentice IC, Sitch S, Terrer C. 2023. Evidence and attribution of the enhanced land carbon sink. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 4, 518-534. 10.1038/s43017-023-00456-3.
- Ruehr S, Girotto G, Verfaillie J, Baldocchi D, Cabon A, Keenan TF. 2023. Ecosystem groundwater use enhances carbon sinks in a semi-arid oak savanna. Agricultural & Forest Meteorology, 342, 109725. 10.1016/j.agrformet.2023.109725.
- Massoud EC, Andrews L, Reichle R, Molod A, Park J, Ruehr S, Girotto M. 2022. Seasonal forecasting skill for the High Mountain Asia region in the Goddard Earth
- Observing System. Earth System Dynamics, 14, 147–171. 10.5194/esd-14-147-2023.
- Ruehr S. 2021. Beyond the vulnerability/resilience dichotomy: Perceptions of and responses to the climate crisis on Emau, Vanuatu. Island Studies Journal, 10.24043/isj.151.
- Ruehr S, Lee X, Smith R, Li X, Xu Z, Liu S, Yang X, Zhou Y. 2020. A mechanistic investigation of the oasis effect in the Zhangye cropland in semiarid western China. Journal of Arid Environments, 176, 104120. 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2020.104120.
- Espeland M et al. [14 authors incl. Ruehr S]. 2015. Ancient Neotropical origin and recent recolonisation: Phylogeny, biogeography and diversification of the Riodinidae (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea). Molecular Phylogenetic Evolution, 93, 296-306. 10.1016/j.ympev.2015.08.006.
In review
- Ruehr S, Bassiouni M, Kang Y, Socolar Y, Magney T, Keenan TF. Crop rotation enhances agricultural water use efficiency.
- Friedlingstein P et al [20 authors incl. Ruehr S]. The state of land carbon sinks.
- Pierrat ZA, Gustine RN, Boser A, Ruehr S, Lee CM, Reager JT, Cawse-Nicholson K. Human contributions to evapotranspiration mitigate swings in dry to wet year transitions.
- Rao MP et al. [29 authors incl. Ruehr S]. Atmospheric aridity decouples carbon assimilation and growth in temperate deciduous oaks.
In preparation
- Ruehr S, Dukes J, Rosa L. Irrigation infrastructure and multi-cropping can buffer rainfall extremes in South American agricultural landscapes. (Target journal: Nature Sustainability).
- Ruehr S, Pierrat Z, Parazoo N, Keenan TF. Harnessing solar-induced fluorescence for agricultural research and management. (Target journal: Environmental Research Letters).
- Cabiyo B, Ruehr S, Arora T, Nolan CJ, Kueppers L, Field C. The durability of forests in a changing climate. (Target journal: Nature).
Publications from consulting
- Rutkove SB et al. [6 authors incl. Ruehr S]. 2022. Design and pilot testing of a 26-gauge impedance-electromyography (iEMG) needle in wild type and ALS mice. Nerve & Muscle, 65, 6. 10.1002/mus.27551.
- Chin A, Ruehr S, Tarulli A, Rutkove SB. 2007. Saline-saturated Balsa Wood as a Testing Mediumfor Rotational Electrical Impedance Myography. IFMBE Proceedings, 17, 272-275. 10.1007/978-3-540- 73841-1_72.
Science communication
2023 – FLUXNET blog
2022 – Keenan Group TikTok
2022 – AmeriFlux 25 years data visualization tool
2022 – Berkeley Science Review
2019–2020 – Provincetown Independent
2019 – InsideClimate News
2010 – WOMR Cape Cod’s Outermost Radio
2016, 2018 – Provincetown Banner
Press
2023 – Ask MIT Climate
2023 – Phys.org