Research Plant Physiologist
Research Interests
My research interest is to advance field-scale precision agriculture through the integration of remote sensing and plant ecophysiology to mitigate climate change impacts on crop productivity, by: 1) discovering and utilizing links between remotely sensed signals, plant physiology and crop yield for agricultural applications; 2) innovating reliable and broadly applicable remote sensing tools to monitor and forecast crop stress; and 3) integrating meteorology, remotely sensed signals and plant physiology to provide useful farm management recommendations. The goals of my research are to better understand the ability of crops to adapt to future climate conditions, and utilize that knowledge to improve food security in a changing climate. My current project uses an emerging innovative tool, remote sensing of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), coupled with hyperspectral reflectance and thermal imagery, to probe heat and drought stress responses in maize. My approaches to address this challenge are to harness hardware and software development to enable monitoring across spatial and temporal scales, and to employ both process- and data-driven models to inform cost-effective management.
