Biography
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at the College of the Holy Cross, where I lead the Environmental Remote Sensing Lab. My research uses multi-scale thermal remote sensing, from satellites and drones to tower-based sensors, to understand how plants and ecosystems respond to water stress and a changing climate, spanning individual tree water use to global water consumption trends. I've pioneered methods for estimating transpiration at the individual tree level using thermal cameras, revealing critical inter-species differences in drought vulnerability that are reshaping how we think about ecosystem resilience.
I earned my Ph.D. in Hydrology, with a minor in Remote Sensing, from the University of Arizona, following an M.S. in Water Resources from Sharif University of Technology and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Shahid Beheshti University, both in Iran. Before joining Holy Cross, I held postdoctoral positions at Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona, where this tree-level thermal imaging work took shape alongside broader efforts to track ecosystem water dynamics across drought-prone landscapes.
Publications
Javadian, M., Aubrecht, D., Fisher, J., Scott, R., Burns, S., Diehl, J.L., Munger, J., & Richardson, A. (2024). Scaling individual tree transpiration with thermal cameras reveals interspecies differences to drought vulnerability, Geophysical Research Letters. (https://doi.org/10.1029/2024GL111479)
Javadian, M., Scott, R.L., Woodgate, W., Richardson, A.D., Dannenberg, M.P., & Smith, W.K. (2024). Canopy temperature dynamics are closely aligned with ecosystem water availability across a water- to energy-limited gradient, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2024.110206)
Javadian, M., Scott, R.L., Biederman, J.A., Zhang, F., Fisher, J.B., Reed, S.C., Potts, D.L., Villarreal, M.L., Feldman, A.F., & Smith, W.K. (2023). Thermography captures the differential sensitivity of dryland functional types to changes in rainfall event timing and magnitude. New Phytologist. (https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19127)
Javadian, M., Smith, W.K., Lee, K., Fisher, J.B., Knowles, J.F., Scott. R.L., Moore, D.J.P., Leeuwen, W.V., & Behrangi, A. (2022). Canopy temperature is regulated by ecosystem structural traits and captures the ecohydrologic dynamics of a semiarid mixed conifer forest site. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences. (https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006617)
Javadian, M., Behrangi, A., Smith, W.K., Fisher, J.B. (2020). Global trends in evapotranspiration dominated by increases across large cropland regions. Remote Sensing. (https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12071221)
Javadian, M., Behrangi, A., & Sorooshian, A. (2019). Impact of drought on dust storms: case study over Southwest Iran. Environmental Research Letters. (https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12071221)