Dr. Elizabeth Prior
POSTDOCTORAL NETWORK | Global Change Center
Elizabeth Prior
Postdoctoral Associate
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Landon Marston
Civil and Environmental Engineering
eprior@vt.edu
Website • Google Scholar • LinkedIn Page
Dr. Beth Prior is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Virginia Tech where her research focuses on freshwater systems, Earth observation, and environmental change. Her work uses satellite and other geospatial data to better understand freshwater resources and how they are changing in response to climate and human activities. As part of the Re-Analysis of Water for Society (RAWS) project, funded through Schmidt Sciences, she contributes to efforts to develop a comprehensive record of global freshwater systems and understanding of how climate change and human activities are reshaping water resources. She is also a 2026–2027 Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center Fellow, where she participates in interdisciplinary research focused on connecting climate science with adaptation and decision-making. More broadly, she is interested in translating complex environmental and geospatial data into actionable insights that support water resource management, conservation, and climate adaptation.
Her previous research experience spans freshwater systems and river corridors, using satellite, airborne, and drone-based observations to investigate processes ranging from river hydraulics and floodplain dynamics to geomorphic change. She developed this interdisciplinary research experience through her undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at Auburn University, her Ph.D. in Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech, and research collaborations at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She has worked extensively with multispectral imagery, lidar, photogrammetry, and hydrodynamic modeling, including data from NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission. Through these approaches, she sought to better understand how freshwater systems are changing and how Earth observation can improve our ability to monitor and manage these changes.
Last updated October 2026.
The GCC postdoctoral network connects our outstanding postdoctoral researchers to our broader GCC community, and provides them with a variety of professional development opportunities such as training in mentorship, grant writing, and science communication.
