Meet Renoster’s exceptional science team! This crew is a collective of highly skilled individuals each bringing a diverse tapestry of education, experience, and innovative thinking to the forefront of carbon project analysis. From utilizing remote sensing technology to integrating forest economics into carbon market strategies, they embody our core values of deep transparency and rigorous scientific inquiry.
Read on to learn more about the expertise and personalities behind Renoster’s science team, and what motivates them to make a measurable impact on climate change!
Elias Ayrey, PhD
At the helm is Elias, Renoster’s Co-Founder & Chief Science Officer. He is a forest remote sensing scientist by training who's been in the carbon industry for the last five years and holds a PhD and MS in Forest Resources (Remote Sensing) from the University of Maine. He specializes in combining on-the-ground forest measurement techniques with aerial and satellite data, allowing him to explore forestry at the small scale and entire forests at the landscape level.
Prior to co-founding Renoster in 2022, Elias was head scientist at the forest carbon brokerage agency Pachama. His reputation as a staunch advocate for more transparency and integrity in forest carbon markets has only grown since. Elias is also known for his YouTube channel where he simplifies complex carbon topics and combines academic rigor with industry expertise.
How did your life and career lead you to Renoster?
Saif Bhatti originally started Renoster nearly five years ago with the intention of helping prevent big-game poaching by creating devices that could track poachers. I came on-board and the company shifted its focus to carbon in 2022. At the time we saw the carbon market struggling due to quality issues, and buyers were left uninformed about which credits were legitimate and which weren't really having an impact. The carbon markets can be a powerful tool to prevent climate change, but only if buyers are informed and are able to navigate away from all the fraud in the market. We believe that the markets can get better and really have an impact on climate change, but only if there's either greater regulation or greater consumer demand/knowledge for quality.
What excites you most about your work?
I think that despite their tarnished reputation, carbon credits have the greatest potential to positively impact climate outcomes as nearly any other solution out there today. Realistically humans can only reduce their emissions by so much without making dramatic alterations to their way of life -- and that's just not something society is willing to do. Carbon credits offer humanity a way to 'balance its budget'. So fixing the carbon markets is one of the most impactful things that I think I can do as a climate scientist.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
Ahh, all I'd want to be is different types of scientists. If I had more mathematical prowess, physics or astronomy would be really interesting. Being on the forefront of searching for exoplanets from the faint scraps of data that we have would be really exciting.
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
Outside of my professional life, my wife is expecting with our first child in November and I'm very excited/nervous. One of my favorite hobbies is that I'm a private pilot. I learned to fly in graduate school when I was studying remote sensing -- for aerial imagery acquisitions and whatnot. Admittedly a not very carbon-friendly hobby, but my little plane is surprisingly fuel efficient and sometimes moreso than a car. I do offset my emissions!
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Jack Kilbride, PhD
Jack is a Remote Sensing Scientist at Renoster. He focuses on forest structure, land cover, and ecosystem dynamics through remote sensing technologies. His work merges computer vision with forest science, utilizing machine learning to enhance forest ecosystem understanding. Jack earned a PhD in Geography from Oregon State University and an MS in Forest Management from the University of Maine.
How did your life or career lead you to Renoster?
Most of my research in my Masters and Doctorate programs involved using satellite image to explore forest structure and ecosystem processes (e.g., disturbance regimes). Renoster's goal for improving the carbon markets resonated with me as I observed huge amounts of resources being directed towards projects with seemingly nominal impact. Improving the quality of carbon projects is good the climate and is an viable mechanism for directing resources towards conservation and ecosystem restoration efforts.
What excites you most about your work?
The rapid pace of development at a start-up lets you tackle many different problems. Each day is usually pretty different as we iterate on different components of our science software stack.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
Law seems like it would interesting. There is a lot to learn and an opportunity to specialize.
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
I enjoy woodworking, playing bass guitar, and spending time outdoors.
Mary Ignatiadis
Mary is a Forest Economics & Policy Expert at Renoster. She has held former roles at Native, PBC, and Manulife, and brings deep experience in carbon project development and natural capital management. Her expertise covers climate-smart forest products and economic drivers of forest land use. Mary holds an MS in Forest Policy & Economics from the University of Maine.
How did your life or career lead you to Renoster?
I met Elias in graduate school - even though our work wasn't directly related, I was fascinated by what he was doing. We reconnected to talk about the challenges that we'd both seen in forest carbon since graduating, and now I'm actually working on those challenges at Renoster.
What excites you most about your work?
Forest economics is almost entirely missing from forest carbon markets - from the methodologies, the discourse, everything. Especially in North America, where our forest carbon projects come at tremendous risk of leakage and other externalities, we really need to understand forest carbon within the wider economic context. Renoster is the only company I've seen seriously integrating forest economics research into forest carbon.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
Linguistics. I love learning languages, and linguistics is such an important tool for understanding our evolution as human beings.
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
I'm fortunate that I get to spend a lot of time in forests in addition to studying them. Maine is an amazing place to hike, forage, hunt, and backcountry ski, which I often do with my partner and our three dogs when we're not renovating our house or taking swing dance lessons.
Mateus Mendes
Mateus is a Forest Carbon Scientist at Renoster. He specializes in geospatial data and machine learning to estimate forest dynamics. Previously an NbS rating analyst at Sylvera and leader in digital MRV for Delta Blue Carbon, he's committed to using data analysis to highlight forest ecosystem value. Mateus holds MS degrees in Forestry Engineering from the University of Lleida and Sustainable Forest Management from the University of Tuscia.
How did your life or career lead you to Renoster?
I’ve always been a big fan of Renoster’s work because of its commitment to delivering transparency and science-based ratings. What I value most at Renoster is the emphasis on science, and it's an honor for me to collaborate with people who deeply understand forest and carbon science, as well as the complexities of geospatial data.
What excites you most about your work?
What excites me most is the opportunity to work with incredibly smart people who are open to sharing their opinions and always willing to help. In addition, being involved in diverse projects—from ratings to modeling, GIS, and machine learning—makes for a dynamic and continuous learning environment.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
I’d probably say music.
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
I enjoy music, traveling, watching cooking reality shows, and sometimes even trying my hand at making a few dishes myself—hahaha!
Paul Hacker
Paul is a Forest Carbon Scientist at Renoster. He has experience in both raster and point-cloud remote sensing, and applies his skills to evaluate and monitor the integrity forest carbon projects. Paul received a PhD in Forestry and a Master of Geomatics for Environmental Management from the University of British Columbia.
How did your life or career lead you to Renoster?
I’ve had experience in both raster and point-cloud remote sensing, and apply my skills to evaluate and monitor the integrity forest carbon projects. I received a PhD in Forestry and a Master of Geomatics for Environmental Management from the University of British Columbia.
What excites you most about your work?
The most exciting thing about my work with Renoster is the capacity to innovate.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
A writer - novels specifically.
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
Although my career path is somewhat stock, my personal life can be best summed up using more inventive language in the form of a haiku:
Earth’s rapid repair
Begs wise, innovative care
Three children to raise
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Akshata Karnik
Akshata is a Geo-Spatial Data Science Intern at Renoster. She is an ecologist and geo-spatial data scientist with 6 years of field experience in wildlife research and is focused on generating a carbon project database using GIS. Akshata is a U Michigan alum From Mumbai, India.
How did your life or career lead you to Renoster?
I graduated from the University of Michigan with a specialization in Geospatial Data Science and was looking for roles where I could apply my newly acquired geospatial skills in the environment domain. And the role at Renoster was perfect since it was the combination of the both the skills and my domain of interest.
What excites you most about your work?
I get to use my coding skills to contribute to solutions for environmental issues, and even if my role is small, it feels great to contribute.
If you weren’t a scientist and could instantly become an expert in something else, what would it be?
I'd want to be an expert in Hindustani Classical singing :) And also driving in Mumbai, phew!
Outside of your professional life, what do you enjoy doing?
I enjoy yoga, am perfecting my knitting/crocheting skills, and exploring new places and food.
That's a wrap! Renoster is immensely proud of the science we're advancing, but even more so of the people making it all possible.
