# Christa Peters-Lidard

Christa Peters-Lidard is an American hydrologist known for her work on integrating land surface modeling and data assimilation, particularly with remotely sensed measurements of precipitation.

## Early life

Peters-Lidard grew up in Chesterfield County, Virginia where she was fascinated about nature, learned that she was good at math, and that she liked earth science. As an undergraduate at Virginia Tech she worked on a project on aquifers and groundwater flow at the United States Geological Survey and at that point she realized that she wanted to be an earth scientist at National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA).

## Education and career

Peters-Lidard has a B.S. in Geophysics from Virginia Tech (1991). Subsequently she earned an M.A. (1993) and a Ph.D. (1997) in Civil Engineering and Operations Research from Princeton University. From 1997 to 2001, Peters-Lidard was an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. Following this she joined the hydrological sciences branch of the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) at the Goddard Space Flight Center. In 2015, Peters-Lidard became the Deputy Director for Hydrosphere, Biosphere, and Geophysics works in the Earth Sciences Division at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
From 2011 to 2018 Peters-Lidard was the Chief Editor for the Journal of Hydrometeorology.

## Research

Peters-Lidard's graduate work linked rainfall measurements with data from airborne sensors detecting rainfall. She also established a mathematical framework to link land-atmosphere models with remotely-sensed rainfall data, and considered the role of heat being released from soils on modeling energy fluxes. While at Georgia Institute of Technology, she used balloons to make measurements of boundary layers in the atmosphere. Peters-Lidard has had one Ph.D student, Feifei Pan, who estimated the amount of water in soils based on rainfall levels, and examined algorithms used to characterize variability in a region's topography.
Peters-Lidard led the team that built a high performance computing cluster that became NASA's Land Information System software (LIS). LIS was the co-winner of NASA's 2005 software of the year award. LIS allows land surface modeling and data assimilation and, working with Sujay Kumar, Peters-Lidard used this system to quantify soil moisture assimilation.

### Selected publications

* Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Houser, P. R.; Tian, Y.; Kumar, S. V.; Geiger, J.; Olden, S.; Lighty, L.; Doty, B.; Dirmeyer, P.; Adams, J.; Mitchell, K. (2007-09-01). "High-performance Earth system modeling with NASA/GSFC's Land Information System". Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering. 3 (3): 157–165. doi:10.1007/s11334-007-0028-x. ISSN 1614-5054. S2CID 9478651.
* Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Blackburn, E.; Liang, X.; Wood, E. F. (1998-04-01). "The Effect of Soil Thermal Conductivity Parameterization on Surface Energy Fluxes and Temperatures". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 55 (7): 1209–1224. Bibcode:1998JAtS...55.1209P. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1998)055<1209:TEOSTC>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0022-4928.
* Tian, Yudong; Peters-Lidard, Christa D. (2010). "A global map of uncertainties in satellite-based precipitation measurements". Geophysical Research Letters. 37 (24): n/a. Bibcode:2010GeoRL..3724407T. doi:10.1029/2010GL046008. ISSN 1944-8007. S2CID 129457699.
* Kumar, Sujay V.; Reichle, Rolf H.; Koster, Randal D.; Crow, Wade T.; Peters-Lidard, Christa D. (2009-12-01). "Role of Subsurface Physics in the Assimilation of Surface Soil Moisture Observations". Journal of Hydrometeorology. 10 (6): 1534–1547. Bibcode:2009JHyMe..10.1534K. doi:10.1175/2009JHM1134.1. ISSN 1525-7541. S2CID 53057308.

## Awards and honors

* Arthur S. Flemming Award (2007)
* NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal (2012)
* Fellow, American Meteorological Society (2012)
* Fellow, American Geophysical Union (2018)

## Reference section

* 1 2 Christa Peters-Lidard Maniac Lecture, November 28, 2018, 12 December 2018, retrieved 2021-06-14
* 1 2 3 4 "Sciences and Exploration Directorate - Dr. Christa D. Peters-Lidard".
* ↑ OCLC 84079986
* ↑ "JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY, AMS Journals". 2012-10-17. Archived from the original on 2012-10-17. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
* ↑ "Editors and Staff Contacts - American Meteorological Society". 2015-09-12. Archived from the original on 2015-09-12. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
* ↑ "Bio - Dr. Christa D Peters-Lidard". science.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2021-06-10.
* ↑ Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Wood, Eric F. (1994). "Estimating storm areal average rainfall intensity in field experiments". Water Resources Research. 30 (7): 2119–2131. Bibcode:1994WRR....30.2119P. doi:10.1029/94WR00558. ISSN 1944-7973.
* ↑ Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Zion, M. S.; Wood, E. F. (1997). "A soil-vegetation-atmosphere transfer scheme for modeling spatially variable water and energy balance processes". Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 102 (D4): 4303–4324. Bibcode:1997JGR...102.4303P. doi:10.1029/96JD02948. ISSN 2156-2202.
* ↑ Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Blackburn, E.; Liang, X.; Wood, E. F. (1998-04-01). "The Effect of Soil Thermal Conductivity Parameterization on Surface Energy Fluxes and Temperatures". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. 55 (7): 1209–1224. Bibcode:1998JAtS...55.1209P. doi:10.1175/1520-0469(1998)055<1209:TEOSTC>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0022-4928.
* ↑ Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Davis, Luke H. (2000-04-01). "Regional Flux Estimation in a Convective Boundary Layer Using a Conservation Approach". Journal of Hydrometeorology. 1 (2): 170–182. Bibcode:2000JHyMe...1..170P. doi:10.1175/1525-7541(2000)001<0170:RFEIAC>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 1525-7541.
* ↑ Pan, Feifei; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Sale, Michael J. (2003). "An analytical method for predicting surface soil moisture from rainfall observations". Water Resources Research. 39 (11): 1314. Bibcode:2003WRR....39.1314P. doi:10.1029/2003WR002142. ISSN 1944-7973. S2CID 53414921.
* ↑ Pan, Feifei; Peters-Lidard, Christa D. (2008). "On the Relationship Between Mean and Variance of Soil Moisture Fields1". JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association. 44 (1): 235–242. Bibcode:2008JAWRA..44..235P. doi:10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00150.x. ISSN 1752-1688. S2CID 21207149.
* ↑ Pan, Feifei; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; King, Anthony W. (2010-11-01). "Inverse Method for Estimating the Spatial Variability of Soil Particle Size Distribution from Observed Soil Moisture". Journal of Hydrologic Engineering. 15 (11): 931–938. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)HE.1943-5584.0000274. ISSN 1084-0699.
* ↑ Pan, Feifei; Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Sale, Michael J.; King, Anthony W. (2004). "A comparison of geographical information systems–based algorithms for computing the TOPMODEL topographic index". Water Resources Research. 40 (6). Bibcode:2004WRR....40.6303P. doi:10.1029/2004WR003069. ISSN 1944-7973.
* 1 2 Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Houser, P. R.; Tian, Y.; Kumar, S. V.; Geiger, J.; Olden, S.; Lighty, L.; Doty, B.; Dirmeyer, P.; Adams, J.; Mitchell, K. (2007-09-01). "High-performance Earth system modeling with NASA/GSFC's Land Information System". Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering. 3 (3): 157–165. doi:10.1007/s11334-007-0028-x. ISSN 1614-5054. S2CID 9478651.
* ↑ Kumar, S.; Peterslidard, C.; Tian, Y.; Houser, P.; Geiger, J.; Olden, S.; Lighty, L.; Eastman, J.; Doty, B.; Dirmeyer, P. (2006-10-01). "Land information system: An interoperable framework for high resolution land surface modeling". Environmental Modelling & Software. 21 (10): 1402–1415. Bibcode:2006EnvMS..21.1402K. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2005.07.004. ISSN 1364-8152.
* ↑ Hazen, Allison. "NASA - NASA Announces Software of the Year Award Winners". www.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2021-06-18.
* ↑ Peters-Lidard, Christa D.; Kumar, Sujay V.; Mocko, David M.; Tian, Yudong (2011). "Estimating evapotranspiration with land data assimilation systems". Hydrological Processes. 25 (26): 3979–3992. Bibcode:2011HyPr...25.3979P. doi:10.1002/hyp.8387. hdl:2060/20120003860. ISSN 1099-1085. S2CID 130614517.
* ↑ Kumar, Sujay V.; Reichle, Rolf H.; Koster, Randal D.; Crow, Wade T.; Peters-Lidard, Christa D. (2009-12-01). "Role of Subsurface Physics in the Assimilation of Surface Soil Moisture Observations". Journal of Hydrometeorology. 10 (6): 1534–1547. Bibcode:2009JHyMe..10.1534K. doi:10.1175/2009JHM1134.1. ISSN 1525-7541. S2CID 53057308.
* ↑ "NASA - NASA Researcher Awarded 2008 Arthur S. Flemming Award". www.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2021-06-10.
* ↑ "NASA Agency Honor Awards - 2012" (PDF). 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-12-12. Retrieved 2021-06-10.
* ↑ "List of Fellows". American Meteorological Society. Retrieved 2021-06-09.
* ↑ "Peters-Lidard". Honors Program. Retrieved 2021-06-10.
* ↑ "American Geophysical Union Announces 2018 Fellows". AGU Newsroom. Retrieved 2021-06-09.