Karen C. Seto

Karen Seto is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of the Environment. She is an urban and land change scientist whose central research focus is how urbanization will affect the planet. A geographer by training, she integrates remote sensing, field interviews, and modeling methods to study urbanization and land change, forecast urban growth, and examine the environmental consequences of urban expansion. Seto is a specialist in contemporary urbanization in China and India, where she has conducted research for over 20 and 10 years, respectively.

Her publications include the book City Unseen, which uses satellite imagery to show how cities shape landscapes and how landscapes shape cities. Seto is co-editor-in-chief of the journal, Global Environmental Change. She is the recipient of a NASA New Investigator Program Award, an NSF Career Award, a National Geographic Research Grant, and the Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing Research Award from the American Association of Geographers. Seto co-founded and co-chaired the global research project Urbanization and Global Environmental Change and has served on numerous U.S. National Research Council Committees. She earned a Ph.D. in Geography from Boston University.