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I grew up in a riverside city along the Yangtze River where flooding had been a serious concern before the Three Gorges Dam was completed. My childhood experience of the 1998 megaflood motivated me to become a hydrologist. While I was an undergraduate, I was so excited to embrace new opportunities from the fast-evolving geospatial technologies in environmental sciences. I continued to graduate studies, focusing on remote sensing of water at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Kansas State University.  

I am specialized in hydrologic remote sensing. As a CIRES Visiting Fellow at CU Boulder, I developed a novel lake water level reconstruction method using satellite images and LiDAR measurements. I applied this method to over one-quarter million satellite images and discovered that more than half of Earth’s largest water bodies have declined over the past three decades, which is published in Science. I am grateful to receive the Early Career Scholars Award in Remote Sensing by the American Association of Geographers (AAG) for 2024 during my postdoc fellowship at UVA. I joined USF in 2025 after a short-term postdoc at Brown University, where I led a NASA project on tracking melting water discharge from snowpacks and glaciers using the new Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. Though working with colleagues from multiple disciplines, I have developed a wide range of research interests in water sciences, including but not limited to 

• Water shortage 

• Flooding 

• Reservoir sedimentation  

• Hydrological sensitivity of warming and water use 

• Environmental impacts of dams and water level changes 

• Sea Level Rise 

I enjoy outdoor activities. I have been a runner since my postdoc in Boulder, where I had easy access to numerous trails in the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Beyond running, I like hiking and camping with my family and playing with our cat Oliver.

I am actively searching for highly motivated graduate students. If you are interested in joining our group, please send your CV and a brief introduction of your research interests via email for potential opportunities.

Undergraduate:

GIS4034 Remote Sensing of Environment 

Graduate:

GIS5034 Introduction to Remote Sensing 

• C. P. Brucker, B. Livneh, F. L. Rosario-Ortiz, F. Yao, A. P. Williams, W. C. Becker, S. K. Kampf, B. Rajagopalan. 2025. Wildfires drive multi-year water quality degradation over the western United States. Nature Communications Earth & Environment, 6, 2025, doi:10.1038/s43247-025-02427-6.  
• S. W. Cooley, J. Wang, H. Gao, F. Yao, B. Livneh, Y. Li, J. Hou, Z. Hao, X. Cai, F. Ling. 2025. Global intercomparison of satellite-derived variability in reservoir storage. Environmental Research Letters, 20, 084035, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ade903.  

• C. Wang, C. Song, T. A. Schroeder, C. E. Woodcock, T. M. Pavelsky, Q. Han, F. Yao. 2025. Interpretable Multi-Sensor Fusion of Optical and SAR Data for GEDI-Based Canopy Height Mapping in Southeastern North Carolina. Remote Sensing, 17(9), 1536, doi:10.3390/rs17091536.  

• Fernando et al. (with International Hydrogeodesy Team). 2024. The Potential of Hydrogeodesy to Address Key Hydrological and Water-related Sustainability Questions and Challenges. Water Resources Research, 60, e2023WR037020, doi:10.1029/2023WR037020.  

• F. Yao, B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan, J. Wang, K. Yang, C. Wang, J.-F. Crétaux, J.T. Minear. 2024. Leveraging ICESat-2 and Landsat for global-scale, multi-decadal reconstruction of lake water levels. Water Resources Research, 60, e2023WR035721. doi:10.1029/2023WR035721.  

• F. Yao, J.T. Minear, B. Rajagopalan, C. Wang, K. Yang, B. Livneh. 2023. Estimating reservoir sedimentation rates and storage capacity losses using high-resolution Sentinel-2 satellite and water level data. Geophysical Research Letters, 50(16), e2023GL103524. doi:10.1029/2023GL103524.  

• K. Frieler, J. Volkholz, S. Lange, J. Schewe, M. Mengel, M.R. Rivas López, C. Otto, C. P. O. Reyer, D. N. Karger, J. T. Malle, S. Treu, C. Menz, J. L. Blanchard, C. S. Harrison, C. M. Petrik, T. D. Eddy, K. Ortega-Cisneros, C. Novaglio, Y. Rousseau, R. A. Watson, C. Stock, X. Liu, R. Heneghan, D. Tittensor, O. Maury, M. Büchner, T. Vogt, T. Wang, F. Sun, I. J. Sauer, J. Koch, I. Vanderkelen, J. Jägermeyr, C. Müller, J. Klar, I. D. Vega del Valle, G. Lasslop, S. Chadburn, E. Burke, A. Gallego-Sala, N. Smith, J. Chang, S. Hantson, C. Burton, A. Gädeke, F. Li, S. N. Gosling, H. Müller Schmied, F. Hattermann, J. Wang, F. Yao, T. Hickler, R. Marcé, D. Pierson, W. Thiery, D. Mercado-Bettín, M. Forrest, and M. Bechtold: Scenario set-up and forcing data for impact model evaluation and impact attribution within the third round of the Inter-Sectoral Model Intercomparison Project (ISIMIP3a). Geoscientific Model Development, 17, 1-51. doi:10.5194/gmd-17-1-2024.  

• C. Wang, T. M. Pavelsky, E. D. Kyzivat, F. Garcia-Tigreros, E. Podest, F. Yao, X. Yang, S. Zhang, C. Song, T. Langhorst, W. Dolan, M.R. Kurek, M.E. Harlan, L.C. Smith, D.E. Dutman, R.G.M. Spencer, C.J. Gleason, K.P. Wichland, R.G. Striegl, D.L. Peters. 2023. Quantification of wetland vegetation communities features with airborne AVIRIS-NG, UAVSAR, and UAV LiDAR data in Peace-Athabasca Delta. Remote Sensing of Environment, 294, 113646, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2023.113646.  

• K. Yang, A. John, D. Shean, J. D. Lundquist, Z. Sun, F. Yao, S. Todoran, N. Cristea. 2023. High-resolution mapping of snow cover in montane meadows and forests using Planet imagery and machine learning. Frontiers in Water, 5, 63, doi:10.3389/frwa.2023.1128758.  

• F. Yao, B. Livneh, B. Rajagopalan, J. Wang, J.-F. Crétaux, Y. Wada, M. Berge-Nguyen. 2023. Satellites reveal widespread decline in global lake water storage. Science, 380(6646), 743-749, doi: 10.1126/science.abo2812. (; )  

• M. Joseph, A. Spiers, M. Koontz, N. Ilangakoon, K. Solvik, N. Quarderer, J. McGlinchy, V. Scholl, L. Denis, C. Nagy, A. Braswell, M. Rossi, L. Herwehe, L. Wasser, M. Cattau, V. Iglesias, A. Mahood, F. Yao, S. Leyk, and J. Balch. 2023. Ten simple rules for working with high resolution remote sensing data. Peer Community Journal. doi: 10.24072/pcjournal.223.  

• J. Wang, B.A. Walter, F. Yao, C. Song, M. Ding, A.S. Maroof, J. Zhu, C. Fan, A. Xin, J.M. McAlister, S. Sikder, Y. Sheng, G.H. Allen, J.-F. Cretaux, Y. Wada. 2022. GeoDAR: Georeferenced global dam and reservoir database for bridging attributes and geolocations. Earth System Science Data, 14(4), 1869-1899, doi:10.5194/essd-14-1869-2022.  

• C. Wang, T. M. Pavelsky, F. Yao, X. Yang, S. Zhang, B. Chapman, C. Song, A, Sebastian, B. Frizzelle, E. Frankenberg. 2022. Flood extent mapping during Hurricane Florence with repeat-pass L-band UAVSAR images. Water Resources Research, 58, e2021WR030606, doi:10.1029/2021WR030606.  

• Abdalla et al. (with International Altimetry Team). 2021. Altimetry for the future: Building on 25 years of progress. Advances in Space Research, 68, 319–363, doi:10.1016/j.asr.2021.01.022.  

• F. Yao, J. Wang, C. Wang, and J.-F. Crétaux. 2019. Constructing long-term high-frequency time series of global lake and reservoir areas using Landsat imagery. Remote Sensing of Environment, 232,111210, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2019.111210.