Valentina's work is focused on quantifying land surface changes over time though a combination of satellite imagery algorithms, statistical analysis and geographical information systems (GIS). She brings wide experience in the analysis of varied landscapes, from snow cover to arid land vegetation.
She grew up on a farm in southern Chile, always interested in the natural dynamics of land and wildlife. She obtained a Bachelor Degree (Honours) in Geography in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. During her thesis, she worked on the spatial-temporal variations, through Landsat imagery, for surface humidity, vegetation and water bodies in the area around the biggest brine lake in Chile.
Valentina gained quantitative analysis experience while working in the Seismological National Centre of Chile as Seismic Data Analyst. She then moved to a research assistant position in the University of Santiago in the Climate Change Lab, where she studied the variations in snow cover of the Andes from 1986 to 2018, using Landsat imagery in combination with R-scripts. She was in charge of the cross-validation of field-data with satellite imagery, and she participated in different field-campaigns in the Southern Ice-sheets (Patagonia), Antarctica and Andes Range, to measure reflectiveness, radiation and collecting snow samples.