Steven started work as a graduate student with the Mountain Hydrology Research group in Autumn 2017, and earned his Master's degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2019. In his Master's thesis, Steven demonstrated a bias-correction method for thermal infrared cameras used in airborne observations of snow and forest surface temperatures (Pestana et al., 2019).

For his PhD work, Steven investigated the use of infrared observations from NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) to observe components of the energy balance of mountain snow. While at UW, he also enjoyed the opportunity to teach and TA the “Data Analysis in Water Science” course, as well as participate in and lead tutorials for UW eScience Institute hackweeks. These experiences sparked an interest in critically examining and improving his own teaching and learning methods.

In the summer of 2023, Steven earned his PhD. He will continue to pursue his passion for teaching as a data analysis lecturer at UW in the fall of 2023.

Python is Steven's programming language of choice. He is continuing to learn about contributing to open science and software. Steven enjoys birdwatching while exploring the mountains and forests of the Pacific Northwest, and stargazing when the night skies are clear. Prior to starting at UW he worked on a NASA Applied Sciences DEVELOP project at JPL. He earned a B.S. in Geology, with a minor in Physics, from Cal Poly Pomona in 2015.