César Terrer

César Terrer is a 2022 principal investigator in the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is assistant professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering. Prior to joining MIT, he previously held postdoctoral positions at Stanford University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and was a Lawrence Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

With his lab at MIT, César's research addresses some of the central questions in Earth system science and climate change research by employing a holistic view of Earth’s dynamics at a global scale, with a focus on plant-soil interactions. César's synthesises large datasets of field observations and remote-sensing data through meta-analysis, machine-learning and other statistical approaches to better understand the global functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. In 2022, César received J-WAFS Seed Grant funding with his colleague, Wenzhe Jiao, for his project, 'High-resolution plant water stress monitoring' which is developing a monitoring system for farmers using remote-sensing data.

In 2023, César and Charles Harvey, professor in the MIT department of civil and environmental engineering received an inaugural Seed Award from the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium for their project, 'Growing season length, productivity, and carbon balance of global ecosystems under climate change'.

César took hi bachelor's and master's degrees from Murcia, Spain and a PhD in climate change ecosystem ecology from Imperial College London.