Rafael Almeida joined the O'Neill School in 2024. He is an ecosystem scientist with a background in freshwater ecology, driven by the challenge of providing sustainable energy, water, and food to a growing human population in a fast-changing world.
Almeida’s research and teaching focus on multiple sustainability dimensions of energy, water, and food systems, including greenhouse gas footprints, land-use change, water quality and quantity, hydrological alteration, and biodiversity impacts. Harnessing approaches from various environmental science disciplines, his work combines ecological fieldwork, geospatial analysis, and data science to gain insights at multiple scales—from global synthesis, to aquatic and agricultural ecosystems in North America, to rivers and floodplains in the Amazon.
His research has advanced the burgeoning field of basin-scale hydropower planning, emphasizing the role of coordinated dam siting in reducing adverse ecological impacts of hydropower development. His work has evolved to encompass the sustainability of broader energy systems, including emerging technologies such as ‘aquavoltaics’ (deploying solar panels on water surfaces) and ‘agrivoltaics’ (integrating solar power and agriculture). Additionally, Almeida investigates greenhouse gas emissions from managed aquatic ecosystems, ranging from large reservoirs to small ponds associated with the rapid expansion of aquaculture.
