Stanford University
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Diana Moanga
Lecturer, Earth Systems Program
BioDiana A. Moanga, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Earth Systems Program at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability. She teaches courses in geographic information science (GIS), remote sensing, spatial analysis, and geospatial data science, including Fundamentals of Geographic Information Science, Advanced Concepts in Geographic Information Science, and Remote Sensing of Land, Biology and Global Change, and mentors undergraduate and graduate students through independent research.
Her teaching emphasizes applied, problem-based learning that connects geospatial methods to real-world environmental and societal questions. She designs GIS coursework around place-based analyses, spatial problem solving, cartographic communication, and independent student projects, with the goal of helping students move beyond learning software to understanding how spatial thinking can be used to investigate complex problems. In 2025, she received the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability’s Excellence in Teaching Award in recognition of her contributions to teaching, curriculum innovation, and student learning. Her approach to GIS education was also featured by Esri in the 2026 article, Making GIS Click: Lessons from a Stanford Classroom.
Dr. Moanga’s research spans coastal resilience, land system science, conservation, and coupled human–environment systems, with particular expertise in GIS, remote sensing, and spatial analysis. Her work examines how environmental and anthropogenic pressures reshape landscapes and coastal systems, including land-use and land-cover change, wildfire, flooding and coastal hazards, ecosystem services, and nature-based approaches to resilience. Across this work, she is particularly interested in developing spatial methods and decision-support frameworks that translate complex environmental data into information that can support conservation, planning, and climate resilience.
She earned her PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. Her doctoral research used geospatial methods to examine land-use and land-cover change across California, including the effects of conservation management on coastal lands, agricultural transitions in the Central Valley, and wildfire activity under changing climate conditions. She earned her MS in Marine Affairs and Policy and BA in Marine Affairs from the University of Miami, where her research included harmful algal blooms, coastal zone management, and coral conservation.
Before joining the Earth Systems faculty in 2023, Dr. Moanga was a postdoctoral researcher in Stanford’s Department of Earth System Science and at Florida International University’s Sea Level Solutions Center.
