Sara Cerasoli

Sara Cerasoli is a School of Engineering Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow in civil and environmental engineering specializing in natural climate solutions and ecohydrology. Her research focuses on optimizing soil, plant, and water resources for climate change mitigation while addressing the interconnected challenges of food security, ecosystem preservation, and water scarcity. Sara’s work integrates ecohydrology, economic modeling, dynamical systems theory, stochastic processes, and optimization methods to tackle complex natural-human system interactions. Her doctoral research examined the biophysical impact of reforestation on cloud formation, water management for agroecosystems, and building natural climate solutions portfolios to maximize the carbon benefit. As a postdoctoral fellow, Sara will advance our understanding of land-atmospheric feedback in natural climate solutions, analyzing their impact on carbon and water cycles and developing optimal policies that harmonize water conservation, food production, and carbon mitigation strategies. Her multidisciplinary approach aims to provide clear definitions of ecohydrological regions suitable for natural climate solutions projects and support effective environmental policymaking.