Dr. Marc Simard is Senior Scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, where he plays a leading role in shaping the scientific direction and use of Earth observation missions. In collaboration with the international science and user communities, he helps define the major science questions that satellite missions must answer to address pressing global challenges such as sea level rise, wetland degradation, and climate-driven ecosystem change. He is also Project Scientist with UCLA’s Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering (JIFRESSE) and a member of the International Blue Carbon Working Group (The Blue Carbon Initiative). 

An interdisciplinary researcher in hydrology and ecosytems modeling, and an expert in radar remote sensing, Dr. Simard develops advanced techniques—including SAR interferometry and polarimetry—to monitor water movement and vegetation dynamics. He is internationally recognized for integrating spaceborne, airborne, and field observations to study some of Earth’s most dynamic and vulnerable landscapes.

Dr. Simard holds a B.Sc. in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics from Queen’s University, and an M.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. in Geomatics Sciences from Université Laval. He joined JPL as a postdoctoral researcher and has since played a leadership role in several major NASA missions.

He is the Principal Investigator of the Delta-X mission, which combines field, airborne, and modeling components to understand land-building processes in the Mississippi River Delta. He serves as the Hydrology Lead for the Surface Topography and Vegetation (STV) mission study, where he is shaping the measurement strategy and science priorities. He is also a member of the science team for SWOT and co-leads the international SWOT Working Group on Deltas, Estuaries, and Coasts, advancing the application of satellite observations in complex and vulnerable coastal systems.

Dr. Simard has led or co-led over 35 competitively funded NASA research projects and has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific literature. His work bridges remote sensing, field observation, and numerical modeling to provide actionable insights into the coupled water, sediment, and carbon cycles that shape ecosystem resilience. He has led or co-led international field campaigns across Africa, South America, and the Arctic, and remains a key contributor to NASA’s airborne radar programs, in particular the UAVSAR. His research continues to push the boundaries of Earth system science, supporting both fundamental discovery and the development of practical tools for managing environmental change. In addition to his scientific leadership, he is deeply committed to mentoring postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and early-career researchers, and continues to foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the Earth science community.

• Ph.D. Geomatics Sciences, Radar Remote Sensing of Forests, Department of Geomatics, Université Laval, Québec, Canada, 1998                                           
• M.Sc. Physics, Department of Physics, Université Laval, Québec, Canada, 1994
• B.Sc. Physics (Honours), Specialization Astrophysics, Department of Physics, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, 1992

Dr. Marc Simard’s research focuses on understanding the interactions between climate, hydrology, geomorphology, and ecosystem structure in coastal zones, wetlands, and forested landscapes. He investigates key scientific questions such as: How do water and sediment flows shape land stability and vegetation productivity in deltas? How do hydrological gradients influence forest structure and carbon dynamics?

To address these questions, Dr. Simard integrates remote sensing observations from satellites and aircraft with numerical models, capturing the coupled dynamics of water, sediment, and carbon in complex environments. His work supports the development of predictive tools to quantify land change, ecosystem productivity, and vulnerability under climate stressors and water diversion projects.

A key objective of his research is to inform decision-making and management practices by delivering actionable science that enhances the resilience of ecosystems and the livelihoods of communities that depend on them. Through mission leadership and close collaboration with the science and user community, Dr. Simard helps guide the design of Earth observation systems that are responsive to real-world challenges.

• Earth Science  | Water Cycle, Hydrology, Including Freshwater Availability And Resource Management
• Earth Science  | Climate Change Science And Adaptation
• Earth Science  | Oceans, Sea Level Rise, And Coastal Management
• Earth Science  | Carbon Cycle And Greenhouse Gasses, Including Monitoring And Mitigation
• Earth Science  | Earth’s Surface And Interior

• Airborne  
• Artificial Intelligence  
• Carbon Cycle  
• Data Science  
• Formulation  
• Geographic Information Systems  
• Geomorphology  
• InSAR Timeseries analysis  
• InSAR to measure surface displacements and movements  
• Instrument Science  
• Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar  
• JPL  
• LIDAR  
• Machine Learning  
• Numerical Modeling  
• Project Management  
• Radar and Remote Sensing  
• SAR/InSAR  
• Satellite Altimetry  
• Wetlands  
• earth system digital twin  
• forest  
• neural networks  
• nisar  
• sea level altimetry  
• swot  
• task management  
• water  
• water cycle  

• JPL Scientist, Since February 2001, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Radar Science and Engineering, Pasadena, California, USA
• Post-Doctoral Fellow, February 1998 to February 2001, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Radar Science and Engineering, Pasadena, California, USA, National Research Council
• Graduate Stagiaire, November 1995 to April 1997, Joint Research Centre of the European Community, Space Applications Institute, Ispra, Italy

1. Regularly serves on NASA review panels.
2. Regularly acts as a manuscript reviewer in science peer-reviewed process.
3. Organized several open data workshops for the Delta-X mission.
4. Participate in workshop to train engineers, technicians and reseracher to use remote sensing to monitor forests.
5. Participates in research communtiy papers to identify science questions and data gaps.

• NASA Award | NASA SWOT Science Team Member | SWOT Promises in River Deltas and Estuaries (2024)
• NASA Award | NASA CMS | Quantifying Lateral Export of Carbon across the World’s Major River Deltas (2024)
• NASA Award | Earth System Science for Building Coastal Resilience | Coupling remote sensing imagery and numerical models to quantify the resilience of coastal marshes to climate change (2024)
• NASA Award | NASA's Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) | Delta-X (2023)
• Senior Research Scientist | Coastal Ecosystems (2022)
• NASA Award | STV Decadal Survey Incubator Program | STV for coastal weltands (2022)
• NASA Award | NASA BioSCAPE Airborne campaign | BioREaCH: Biodiversity-Remote sensing for Estuarine and Coastal Habitat research (2022)
• NASA Award | Evaluator | NASA Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition (2022)
• JPL Award | JPL's R&TD, "Land-Ocean-Aquatic Continuum". Developing a LOAC-specific mission. PI: Simard (2022)
• NASA Award | PI Land Cover and Land Use Change Program | Global mangrove forest degradation hotspots (2021)
• NASA Award | NASA Mission Incubator Program | Surface Topography and Vegetation Science Team (2021)
• NASA Award | PI SWOT Science Team | Understanding SWOT measurements in Coastal Wetlands (2020)
• NASA Award | PI SWOT Science Team | Understanding SWOT measurements in Coastal Wetlands (2020)
• JPL Principal Designation | 334F - Suborbital Radar Science And Engineering (2019)
• JPL Award | JPL’s Strategic R&TD, “Flow of water”. Airborne and field campaign in the Mississippi delta October 2016, data processing, hydrology modeling and assimilation of data (Multi-aircraft Campaign October 2016 (2019)
• NASA Award | NASA-CMS, "Future Mission Fusion for High Biomass Forest Carbon Accounting", PI: Fatoyinbo (2019)
• JPL Award | JPL's Strategic R&TD, "Flow of water". Airborne and field campaign in the Mississippi delta October 2016, data processing, hydrology modeling and assimilation of data (Multi-aircraft Campaign October 2016). PI: Simard (2019)
• JPL Award | PI SWOT Science Team, "Understanding SWOT measurements in Coastal Wetlands", PI: Simard (2019)
• JPL Award | PI NISAR Science Definition Team, "How to Quantify and Optimize NISAR's Ecosystem Science Return", PI: Simard (2019)
• NASA Award | NASA-CMS | Estimating Total Ecosystem Carbon in Blue Carbon and Tropical Peatland Ecosystems (2018)
• JPL Award | NASA-CMS, "Linking satellite and soil data to validate coastal wetland blue carbon inventories: upscaled support for developing MRV and REDD+ protocols", PI: Lisamarie. Windham-Myers (USGS) (2018)
• JPL Award | PI JPL's Topical R&TD, "Revolutionizing our understanding of coastal dynamics in wetlands and estuaries". Water surface velocity and bathymetry with UAVSAR and AirSWOT in the Mississippi delta (multi-aircraft campaign May 2015), PI: Simard (2017)
• NASA Award | NASA CMS | Future Mission Fusion for High Biomass Forest Carbon Accounting (2016)
• NASA Award | NISAR Science Definition Team | How to Quantify and Optimize NISAR's Ecosystem Science Return (2016)
• NASA Award | NASA U.S. Participating Investigator | TanDEM-X Science Team: Assessment of DEM accuracy and forest canopy bias (2016)
• JPL Award | Revolutionizing our understanding of coastal dynamics in wetlands and estuaries”. Water surface velocity and bathymetry with UAVSAR and AirSWOT in the Mississippi delta (multi-aircraft campaign May 2015) (2015)
• NASA Award | NASA CMS | How to Quantify and Optimize NISAR's Ecosystem Science Return (2015)
• NASA Award | NASA -CMS | Total Carbon Estimation in African Mangroves and Coastal Wetlands in preparation for REDD and Blue Carbon Credits (2015)
• NASA Award | NASA Terrestrial Ecology | Estimating Canopy Height using Repeat-Pass Polarimetric Interferometric (PolinSAR) Data from UAVSAR (2014)
• NASA Award | NASA Making Earth System Data record for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program | NASADEM (2013)
• NASA Award | NASA's Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO), Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) | Unified Simulator for Earth Remote Sensing (USERS) (2012)
• NASA Award | NASA Land Cover Land Use Change Program | Vulnerability Assessment of Mangrove Forests in the Americas (2012)
• NASA Award | NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program | 3D Vegetation structure with INSAR and LIDAR (2008)
• NASA Award | Making Earth System Data record for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) Program | The definitive merged global digital topographic data set (2008)
• NASA Award | NASA International Polar Year | An Interferometric Ka-band Synthetic Aperture Radar: A New Technique for Glacier and Ice-sheet Topography Mapping IPY/NASA (2008)
• NASA Award | NASA ICESAT-1 Science Team | Using ICEsat/GLAS waveforms to characterize mangrove canopy structure and calibrate SRTM mangrove height estimates (2006)
• NASA Award | NASA Interdisciplinary Science Program | Large scale assessment of landscape changes and recovery in forest structure of mangrove wetlands subject to human, freshwater diversion, and natural disturbances (hurricanes, other severe storms, climate and sea level change) using enhanced Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data (2004)