Troy Magney

troy magney

Associate Professor

1139 PRB

Education:

  • Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology 2018-2019
  • NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 2015-2018
  • Ph.D., University of Idaho; Natural Resources, 2015
  • B.A., University of Denver; Physical Geography, 2010

Research interests and expertise:

Our lab works at the intersection of plant ecophysiology and ecosystem ecology, scaling functional traits from the leaf to the globe.

We are interested in the mechanisms controlling the way photons bounce off or come from plants, and use this to inform our understanding of ecosystem health, productivity, and stress. 

Disciplines: Ecosystem Ecology | Plant Ecophysiology | Carbon Cycle Science | Environmental Biophysics | Remote Sensing | Instrumentation Development

Current projects:

  • Multi-decadal time series of vegetation chlorophyll fluorescence and derived gross primary production (NASA MEASURES, 2019–2024)
  • CARDI-C: Carbon Dynamics Instigator for California: An open-source platform for tracking carbon uptake and storage across California’s forests (2022-2025)
  • Seasonality of photosynthesis of temperate and boreal conifer forests across North America (NSF Macrosystems Biology, 2019–2024)
  • Integrating field measurements and models to evaluate solar-induce fluorescence as a predictor of dryland productivity (NASA Carbon Cycle Science (2021-2024)
  • COSIF: Combining Carbonyl Sulfide and solar-induced fluorescence to scale the carbon cycle of tropical rainforests from leaf to landscape (NASA Carbon Cycle Science, 2021-2024)
  • Changes in carbon fluxes of the Redwood forests of California (State of California, 2023-2027)
  • Integrative Demography: Combining ecology, remote sensing and genomics to understand population dynamics (NSF Integrative Biology, 2021-2025)
  • AI-enabled sensors for forecasting yield, ripeness, and disease in strawberry (USDA Areawide sub-project, 2021-2024)
  • Sensing and modeling of leaf biochemical and physiological traits, including early vigor (NSF Artificial Intelligence for Food Systems, 2020-2025)
  • Assessment and management of risk associated with wildfire smoke exposure of grapes in the vineyard (USDA SCRI, 2022-2026)
  • Remote-controlled evaluation of distribution uniformity and stem water potential: Extending imagery to integrated decision support (Almond Board of California, 2020-2025)

Current teaching:

  • PLS 198: Environmental Data Science
  • ECL 298: Ecosystem Ecology
  • PLS 124: Introduction to Digital Agriculture
  • PLS 125: Proximal Sensing of Plants
  • FRS 003: Earth From Space

External activities that contribute to scholarship:

  • Area of Emphasis Lead: Landscape and Ecosystem Ecology, Graduate Group in Ecology
  • Editor, Remote Sensing of Environment & AoBP Plants
  • Steering Committee: AmeriFlux Year of Remote Sensing 
  • Workshop co-lead: “Linking Optical and Energy Fluxes”, summer 2023
  • NASA Arctic Boreal Vulnerability (ABoVE) Science Team
  • NASA OCO-2/3 Science Team
  • American Geophysical Union Outstanding Student Presentations Award Committee
  • Plant Sciences Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee member
  • Graduate Group Member for: Ecology, Horticulture and Agriculture, Geography, Hydrology

Prizes, Awards, Honors

  • Alumni Achievement Award, University of Idaho (2022)
  • Early Career Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists (2021)
  • Top downloaded articles in Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2019 & 2020)
  • NASA Group Achievement Award. OCO-2 Science Team. 2018.
  • NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship. 2015–2018.
  • University of Idaho Outstanding Doctoral Student Research and Creativity Award. 2015.
  • College of Natural Resources Overall Outstanding Graduate Student, University of Idaho. 2015. 
  • NASA Idaho Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellow. 2013–2015.
  • Decagon Devices GA Harris Instrumentation Fellow. 2014.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Q87VW00AAAAJ&hl=en

ORCID (16-digit identifier): 0000-0002-9033-0024

Social media links:

Keywords:

  • Ecosystem Ecology
  • Plant ecophysiology
  • Plant biophysics
  • Photosynthesis
  • Remote sensing

Tags

Physiology Ecology, Ecosystems, and Evolution Climate change Conservation, Restoration, and Rangeland Management Crop production and Farming systems Engineering and Technology Forestry and Trees Modeling Plant nutrients