Miguel D. Mahecha

Miguel D. Mahecha is an environmental data scientist at Leipzig University who brings machine learning and other data-driven methods to Earth system science. After geoecology studies at Bayreuth and a doctorate at ETH Zurich in 2009, he worked for more than eleven years at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, where he headed the group Empirical Inference in the Earth System. In 2020, he was first author of the Earth System Dynamics paper that introduced Earth system data cubes and became a full professor at Leipzig University, and in 2026 he led a PNAS study that showed an accelerating north-east shift of the global green wave. He is Professor of Environmental Data Science and Remote Sensing, heads the Institute for Earth System Science and Remote Sensing, and is a Fellow of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS).

Now at: Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence and Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research
Born: 1979
Works: 485
Citations: 24,474
h-index: 63
Badges: Rising
Wayfarer
Loyal

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

2000–2009

Geoecology and an ETH doctorate

Geoecology studies at Bayreuth University fill the years 2000 to 2006, and a biodiversity project in Ecuador turns him toward data-driven research. In 2009, he completes his doctorate at ETH Zurich.
2009–2020

Group leader at Max Planck Jena

A postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena begins in 2009. From 2012 to 2020, he leads the research group Empirical Inference in the Earth System there.
2019

Causal inference in Earth science

In 2019, he is one of the authors of "Inferring causation from time series in Earth system sciences", a Nature Communications Perspective with Jakob Runge as first author. The authors give an overview of causal inference frameworks for Earth system sciences and start the benchmark platform causeme.net.
February 2020

Earth system data cubes

Earth System Dynamics publishes "Earth system data cubes unravel global multivariate dynamics" in February 2020, with him as first author alongside Fabian Gans and Markus Reichstein. The paper introduces the concept of Earth system data cubes and states that machine learning, causal inference and model–data integration fit into the framework.
March 2020

Professor at Leipzig University

In March 2020, he becomes full professor for modelling approaches in remote sensing at Leipzig University. He is one of four principal investigators at the Remote Sensing Centre for Earth System Research, which the Faculty of Physics and Earth System Sciences and the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) found in 2020.
2021–2026

The XAIDA extremes project

The EU project XAIDA (eXtreme events: Artificial Intelligence for Detection and Attribution) is one of his Leipzig research projects from 2021 to 2026. A doctoral researcher in his group applies machine learning to linked extremes such as drought followed by floods.
May 2023

The LexCube 3D visualisation

In May 2023, Leipzig University presents LexCube, a freely accessible 3D viewer that shows climate and satellite data as a cube with time as an equal dimension. Maximilian Söchting builds it as a doctoral project supervised by Gerik Scheuermann and Mahecha.
As of October 2026

Institute head and ELLIS Fellow

He heads Leipzig University's Institute for Earth System Science and Remote Sensing, a post he has held since October 2022. In 2026, he leads a PNAS study that develops a method to track global vegetation states and finds the green wave shifting to the north-east. Professor of Environmental Data Science and Remote Sensing, he is also a principal investigator in the Centre for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (ScaDS.AI) and a Fellow of ELLIS.