Oscar Neyra-Nazarrett (He/Him) is an ESE alum. He worked as an NSF trainee, and was the first member of his family to attend Graduate School. He worked as a research resident for NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In his research, he explores the potential of combining data from multiple satellites to observe attributes of the environment that were unobservable with one satellite alone.
At JPL, Oscar worked under the mentorship of the Engineering and Science Directorate Principal Dr. Kevin Bowman and of the Scientist Dr. Kazuyuki Miyazaki. He was trained on techniques to perform chemical analysis based on Multi-Constituent Satellite Measurements, having a particular emphasis on the analysis of high impact combustion events.
At UCLA, Oscar was advised by Dr. Pablo Saide, who has provided substantial training in Remote Sensing and its applications in the analysis of the environment. With Saide, he has worked on applying multi-satellite observations to the analysis of combustion events in NASA’s FIREX-AQ campaign. In particular, they combined data from the Suomi-NPP, and the AQUA and TERRA satellites. Oscar also received substantial training from Dr. Miriam Marlier, gaining expertise in the use of Geos-Chem, a modeling architecture product of a collaboration with Harvard and NASA.
Oscar previously worked at the DHS Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), and interned in the Nuclear Security Division of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), in Washinton DC, where he started his career. Oscar is a Sustainable Development Engineer by training, from the Monterrey Technological Institute in Mexico. He has also pursued Master Degrees at USC, and Johns Hopkins focusing on National and Global Security respectively, but decided to focus on pure science after pursuing these degrees.
Before coming to Los Angeles, he founded the multi-awarded environmentalist group Generacion Respuesta, an organization with more than 5,000 members, created to empower youth to face climate change. Oscar believes that creativity, and economically feasible innovation are the best tools to face climate change. When not at UCLA, you can find him running at the beach, hiking at California’s parks, or attending networking events. He speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
