Hafez Ahmad

Hafez Ahmad is an oceanographer, geospatial scientist, and environmental researcher whose work integrates oceanography, fisheries science, remote sensing, geospatial analysis, machine learning, and quantitative environmental modeling. He is currently a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, where he works on aquatic and fisheries research involving quantitative acoustic methods, autonomous survey platforms, spatial analysis, and environmental data science. Hafez earned his Ph.D. in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences from Mississippi State University in May 2026. His doctoral research focused on the integrated assessment of water-quality dynamics in the western Mississippi Sound, combining field observations, remote sensing, hydrodynamic and watershed modeling, and phytoplankton community analysis. His work included the development of computational and machine-learning approaches for environmental monitoring and the integration of large-scale geospatial and observational datasets. Before completing his Ph.D., Hafez earned an M.S. in Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture from Mississippi State University, where his research focused on geospatial analysis and management of invasive Silver Carp in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. He worked with the USGS Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit and applied GIS, remote sensing, hydrological connectivity, and spatial modeling to fisheries and aquatic-resource management. He also holds undergraduate and graduate training in Oceanography from the University of Chittagong in Bangladesh and completed an exchange program in Marine and Environmental Sciences at Florida Gulf Coast University, where he gained field and laboratory experience in marine ecology, seagrass, coral reefs, and fisheries. His research interests span fisheries acoustics and biomass estimation, marine and freshwater ecology, physical oceanography, coastal and estuarine processes, remote sensing, GIS, machine learning, and environmental data science. His fisheries-acoustics work includes quantitative echo integration, target-strength analysis, spatial biomass estimation, and the application of autonomous platforms to aquatic surveys. His broader environmental research uses satellite observations, field measurements, geospatial statistics, hydrodynamic models, and machine-learning methods to investigate water quality, aquatic ecosystem dynamics, habitat distribution, and environmental change. Hafez has also worked in marine conservation and spatial planning. As a Marine Data Management Officer with the Wildlife Conservation Society Bangladesh Program, he contributed to marine biodiversity data management, geospatial analysis, marine spatial planning, protected-area planning, and biodiversity monitoring in the Bay of Bengal. His earlier marine research included field studies of coral reefs, seagrass ecosystems, mangroves, coastal habitats, and marine biodiversity. His current research interests include improving aquatic ecosystem monitoring through autonomous observing platforms, hydroacoustic surveys, remote sensing, spatial statistics, and artificial intelligence. He is particularly interested in developing interdisciplinary approaches that connect physical and biological processes with quantitative environmental observations. His work seeks to improve the accuracy, spatial coverage, and efficiency of environmental and fisheries assessments while providing information useful for ecosystem management and conservation. Hafez has published and contributed to research spanning oceanography, environmental science, remote sensing, machine learning, fisheries, and aquatic ecology. His recent work includes applications of ensemble machine learning and satellite observations to water-quality dynamics and machine-learning approaches for evaluating and predicting hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond research, Hafez has been involved in professional and scientific organizations, including the American Fisheries Society,