About
Get to know us
Who We Are
Founded in 2020 and based in Washington, DC, Impact Observatory’s mission is to empower global decision-makers to be planetary superheroes, with the timely, actionable, science-based geospatial insights they need to succeed.
Impact Observatory co-founders Steve Brumby and Sam Hyde met at the National Geographic Society where they led the Society to develop open source technology and geospatial science data that Impact Observatory continues to develop and bring to market.
Meet Our Executive Team
Steven Brumby, PhD
Co-founder, CEO/CTO
Steve is a National Geographic Society Senior Advisor and a World Resources Institute Senior Fellow. He was the Co-Founder and CTO of Descartes Labs, a venture-backed start-up focused on understanding agriculture, natural resources, and human geography using deep learning technology and satellite imagery. Steve was a Senior Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) working on deep-learning and genetic algorithms for video, image, and signals analysis. A co-inventor of LANL’s GENIE image analysis algorithm (R&D100 Award 2002). He received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics at the University of Melbourne (Australia) in 1997 and has over 100 science papers and journal articles.
/stevenbrumby
Sam Hyde
Co-founder, Operations
Samantha Hyde joins Impact Observatory following her time as a Senior Program Manager for Geographic Visualization at National Geographic Society where she co-developed and ran a $6M annual R&D program for conservation technology. Previously she was the Lead Director at Madison River Group, a climate-centric consulting firm providing science based decision support solutions and she served as the Executive Secretariat at the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) where she provided strategic guidance to the White House Subcommittee on Global Change Research (SGCR).
/samantha-brooks-hyde
Mark Mathis
Engineering
Mark Mathis was an inaugural recipient of the Department of Energy High Performance Computer Science Fellowship and went on to a long year career at Los Alamos National Laboratory, primarily in the Decision Applications Division, before becoming a Co-Founder and Principal Engineer at Descartes Labs. Mark continues to get great science into the hands of decision makers at Impact Observatory.
/aliasmrchips
Dan Klaussen
Product
Prior to joining Impact Observatory Dan was VP of Digital Innovation at Marriott International for over 4 years where he led numerous projects in the Customer Experience and IT Strategy departments. As a consultant, he’s led projects in digital transformation for National Geographic Society (identity management, platform infrastructure and geovisualization), PBS (digital video strategy and mobile applications) and Geico (ipad application.) Daniel has over 20 years as a Group Product Manager leading product teams.
/dklaussen
Katy Densmore
Partnerships and Customer Success
Over the course of her career, Katy has worked in both corporate and nonprofit settings throughout North America and across Europe and Asia. She brings over 20 years of technical, leadership, strategic, and environmental experience to our team. At IO, Katy is responsible for the development of customer partnerships and the execution of projects to bring geospatial intelligence to sustainability and risk management challenges.
/katy-densmore