Jessica Block

Jessica Block is the lead coordinator of the Big Pixel Initiative and research analyst with Qualcomm Institute. She studies the dynamic relationship between urban and wildland environments with expertise in wildfire hazards, water resource management, and tectonics. She holds a B.S. from UCLA and an M.S. from Arizona State University in Geology and Urban Ecology. She uses GIS, remote sensing and virtual reality for data visualization to solve problems in regional sustainability.

Her work in sustainability over the last several years has covered regions in the American West, Southeast Australia, Peru, and Mexico where growing populations depend on decreasing water supply, active tectonics threaten resource distribution, and trans-border resource sharing is increasingly contentious. Her work is stakeholder-driven and is currently researching the use of leading-edge technologies for disaster resilience in the U.S., Australia and India.