Prior to joining Yale, Karen Seto was at the faculty of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University for 8 years. Professor Seto studies the human transformation of land and the links between urbanization, global change, and sustainability. A geographer by training, her research includes understanding urbanization dynamics, forecasting urban growth, and examining the environmental consequences of land-use change and urban expansion. She is an expert in satellite remote sensing analysis, applied econometrics, urban growth modelling, and has pioneered methods to reconstruct historical land-use and to develop empirical models to explain and forecast the expansion of urban areas. Her research areas include urban land-use change and urban form, urbanization and the loss of agricultural land, and climate change and urbanization. She has over fifteen years of research experience on urbanization in Asia, especially China, India, Vietnam, and Qatar.