Photo by Mathew E Burciaga

Sophie Ruehr, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Researcher

I recently received my Ph.D. from UC Berkeley’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management and am now a postdoctoral researcher there. My work focuses on the biophysical effects of drought at ecosystem and landscape scales. Using near-surface and satellite remote sensing data, I’ve studied how groundwater drought affects carbon sequestration, the effectiveness of cutting-edge hyperspectral instruments to estimate primary productivity and water stress, and the benefits of sustainable management strategies on agricultural water-use efficiency. In 2025, I will begin a postdoctoral fellowship within the Rosa and Dukes labs at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford. Having worked as a journalist and oral historian, I’m also interested in community perceptions of environmental change, especially when these differ from scientific findings.

Before starting at UC Berkeley, I lived in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation where I collected oral histories about climate change. I’ve worked as a newspaper staff reporter and have written about seal population booms, water pollution, tenant farmers and illicit mushroom foragers. My work has appeared in the Provincetown Independent, InsideClimate News and the Provincetown Banner.

I graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Geology & Geophysics. I write songs for jazz guitar and regulary perform in the East Bay with my band.