Maoya Bassiouni | Research Scientist

Research

Ecohydrology | Biometeorology | Plant Ecophysiology | Art & Curiosity
Ecosystem-based Climate Change Mitigation & Adaptation Strategies

I am a research scientist in Quantitative Ecosystem Dynamics at UC Berkeley, Dept of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

As an ecohydrologist, my research combines physical theory and ecosystem ecology with data science to understand how vegetation interacts with environmental change and how these interactions influence water, carbon, and energy cycles from the soil, through plants
and to the biosphere.

I use systems thinking and am passionate about interdisciplinary research and developing tractable quantitative tools to empower ecosystem-based climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies.
I aspire to foster collaboration across sectors to actualize sustainable development goals.

Current interests:

Diagnose land-atmosphere interactions, vegetation water-carbon tradeoffs and responses to environmental conditions that are encoded in observations from plant to ecosystem scales.

Quantify key ecohydrological parameters and eco-evolutionary optimality principles that enhance our understanding and predictive capacity of complex environmental systems and ecosystem services.

Upscale ground-based experiments with satellite data using hybrid knowledge-guided machine learning and develop spatial criteria for ecosystem management strategies and climate solutions.

Blend art and science to empower society to not only understand but also feel environmental dynamics and imagine sustainable futures.

Publications

GoogleScholar | ORCiD: 0001-5795-9894

R Loritz, CH Wu, D Klotz, M Gauch, F Kratzert and M Bassiouni (2024), Generalising Tree-Level Sap Flow Across the European Continent. Geophysical Research Letters, 51 (6), e2023GL107350. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL107350

Y Kang, M Bassiouni, M Gaber, X Lu and TF Keenan (2023), CEDAR-GPP: spatiotemporally upscaled estimates of gross primary productivity incorporating CO2 fertilization. Earth System Science Data Discussussions, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2023-337.

R Nakagawa, M Chau, J Calzaretta, TF Keenan, P Vahabi, A Todeschini, M Bassiouni and Y Kang (2023), Upscaling Global Hourly GPP with Temporal Fusion Transformer. arXiv preprint, arXiv:2306.13815. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.13815.

M Bassiouni, S Manzoni and G Vico (2023), Optimal plant water use strategies explain soil moisture variability. Advances in Water Resources,173, 104405. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2023.104405

L Hawkins, M Bassiouni, WRL Anderegg, MD Venturas, SP Good, H Kwon, C Hanson, R Fiorella, GJ Bowen and CJ Still (2022), Comparing Model Representations of Physiological Limits on Transpiration at a Semi-arid Ponderosa Pine Site. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, e2021MS002927. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002927

AE Goodwell and M Bassiouni (2022), Source relationships and model structures determine information flow paths in ecohydrologic models. Water Resources Research, 58, e2021WR031164. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021WR031164

R Loritz, M Bassiouni, A Hildebrandt, SK Hassler and E Zehe (2022), Leveraging sap flow data in a catchment-scale hybrid model to improve soil moisture and transpiration estimates. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 26, 4757–4771, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-4757-2022

DR URycki, M Bassiouni, SP Good, BC Crump and B Li (2022), The streamwater microbiome encodes hydrologic data across scales. Science of the Total Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157911

M Bassiouni and G Vico (2021), Parsimony versus predictive and functional performance of three stomatal optimization principles in a big-leaf framework. New Phytologist, 231 (2), 586-600. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17392

MA Scholl, M Bassiouni and AJ Torres-Sanchez (2021), Drought stress and hurricane defoliation influence mountain clouds and moisture recycling in a tropical forest. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118 (7). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2021646118

M Wu, G Vico, S Manzoni, Z Cai, M Bassiouni, F Tian, J Zhang, K Ye and G Messori (2021), Early growing season anomalies in vegetation activity determine the large-scale climate-vegetation coupling in Europe. Journal of Geophysical Research Biogeosciences, 126 (5). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG006167

Z Su, Y Zeng, N Romano, S Manfreda, F Francés, E Ben Dor, B Szabó, G Vico, P Nasta, R Zhuang, N Francos, J Mészáros, SF Dal Sasso, M Bassiouni, L Zhang, DT Rwasoka, B Retsios, L Yu, ML Blatchford, C Mannaerts (2020), An Integrative Information Aqueduct to Close the Gaps between Satellite Observation of Water Cycle and Local Sustainable Management of Water Resources. Water, 12 (5), 1495. https://doi.org/10.3390/w12051495

M Bassiouni, SP Good, CJ Still and CW Higgins (2020), Plant water uptake thresholds inferred from satellite soil moisture. Geophysical Research Letters, 47 (7). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL087077

M Bassiouni, CW Higgins, CJ Still and SP Good (2018), Probabilistic inference of ecohydrological parameters using observations from point to satellite scales. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 22 (6), 3229-3243. https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-22-3229-2018

M Bassiouni, MA Scholl, AJ Torres-Sanchez and SF Murphy (2017), A method for quantifying cloud immersion in a tropical mountain forest using time-lapse photography. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 243, 100-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2017.04.010

M Bassiouni, RM Vogel and SA Archfield (2016), Panel regressions to estimate low-flow response to rainfall variability in ungaged basins. Water Resources Research, 52 (12), 9470-9494. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016WR018718

SK Izuka, JA Engott, K Rotzoll, M Bassiouni, AG Johnson, LD Miller and A Mair (ver 1.0 2016; ver. 2.0, 2018), Volcanic aquifers of Hawai ‘i—Hydrogeology, water budgets, and conceptual models: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2015-5164, 158 p. https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20155164.

JA Engott, AG Johnson, M Bassiouni, SK Izuka and K Rotzoll (ver. 1.0 2015; ver. 2.0, 2017), Spatially distributed groundwater recharge for 2010 land cover estimated using a water-budget model for the island of O'ahu, Hawaii: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2015–5010, 49 p. https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20155010.

AG Johnson, JA Engott, M Bassiouni and K Rotzoll (ver 1.0 2014; ver. 2.0, 2018), Spatially distributed groundwater recharge estimated using a water-budget model for the island of Maui, Hawai‘i, 1978–2007: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2014–5168, 53 p. https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20145168.

M Bassiouni and DS Oki (2013), Trends and shifts in streamflow in Hawai‘i, 1913–2008. Hydrological Processes, 27 (10), 1484-1500. https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.9298.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

2019      PhD Water Resources Engineering, Oregon State University
2012      MSc Environmental Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)
2008      BSc Environmental Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)

Selected Service & Teaching

2023 –      Chair, FLUXNET outreach working group (link)
2024 –      Director & artistic collaborator, FluxArt (link)
2024 –      Creative director and host, Meet the Fluxers Podcast (link)
2022 –      Convener, Emerging machine learning approaches for process
                  understanding in ecosystem sciences, AGU Annual Fall Meeting

Course instructor
BEE 599: Environmental Transport and Mixing (2017, 2019)
BEE 599: Dimensional Analysis and Scaling (2018)

Guest lectures
ESPM C114: Terrestrial Hydrology (2022, 2024); ESPM 111: Ecosystem Ecology (2022);
BEE 322: Ecological Engineering Thermodynamics and Transfer Process (2016-19);
BEE 311: Ecological Fluid Dynamics (2016-19); BEE 361: Ecological Engineering
Laboratory (2017); BEE 313: Ecohydrology (2016)

Mentoring and advising, UC Berkeley
Graduate Program, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management (2022 – );
Capstone Projects, Master of Information and Data Science (2023);
Undergraduate Honors Thesis, Rausser College of Natural Resources (2023);
Data Discovery Program, Div. of Computing, Data Science & Society (2022, 2023)

Experience

2025-          Research Scientist
2022-25      Postdoctoral Research Fellow
                    Dept of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management
                    ESPM, UC Berkeley, CA, USA

2019-21      Postdoctoral Researcher
                    Dept of Crop Produciton Ecology
                    VPE, SLU, Uppsala, SE

2015-19      Graduate Research Fellow
                    Dept of Biological and Ecological Engineering
                    BEE, OSU, Corvallis, OR, USA

2016           Research Scientist
                    USGS National Research Program
                    IWW, OSU, Corvallis, OR, USA

2012-15      Hydrologist
2009-10      Pacific Islands Water Science Center
                    PIWSC, USGS, Honolulu, HI, USA

2012           Master Research Student
                    Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology Lab
                    EFLUM, EPFL, Lausanne, CH

2010           Environmental Engineer
                    Dept of Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development
                    SANDEC, EAWAG, Dakar, Senegal

2008-09      Project Assistant
                    ProAct Network NGO
                    Tannay, CH