Meha Jain, Associate Professor

​I am an Associate Professor in the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan and am part of the Sustainable Food Systems Initiative. My research examines the impacts of environmental change on agricultural production, and how farmers may adapt to reduce negative impacts. I also examine ways that we can sustainably enhance agricultural production, reducing the negative environmental impacts of agriculture. To do this work, I combine remote sensing and geospatial analyses with household-level and census datasets to examine farmer management practices and agricultural production across large spatial and temporal scales. 

Monish Desphande, Postdoctoral Fellow

Monish is a Postdoctoral Fellow on an NSF-funded project researching the impact of climate change on smallholder crop systems in Zambia and India, with a focus on sustainable solutions. He specializes in using multi-sensor remote sensing to quantify the effects of precision agriculture technologies. His current work involves estimating crop sowing time, area, and yield predictions through remote sensing to understand how farmers adapt their management strategies in response to climate change. 

Victor Prudente, Postdoctoral Fellow

Victor is a Postdoctoral Fellow working on a NASA funded project to understand climate change impacts on maize systems in Mexico and how farmers are adapting. He has expertise in using combined multi-sensor remote sensing data for land use and land cover mapping and monitoring. In particular, his focus is on exploring how to use different remote sensing and geospatial data sources to create scalable data products. For his postdoctoral project, he is using remote sensing data to estimate maize sowing time, area, and variety to understand optimal farm management strategies in the face of climate change.

Laura Alicia Rodriguez, Postdoctoral Fellow

Laura is a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by a fellowship from the Secretary of Science, Technology, and Innovation (SECTEI) of the Mexico City administration. She has a background in Sustainable Science and Soil Ecology, and her research is focused on smallholder farmers and sustainable soil management, and food environments. In the Jain lab, she is working on two projects looking at farmer adaptation in agroecosystems in Mexico and in the Indo-Gangetic Plains in South Asia. 

Chaiti Bhagawat, Ph.D. Student

Chaiti is a second year PhD student. She is interested in how remote sensing can be used to provide useful information for smallholder farmers in India, taking into account the various climatic challenges they face. She has a background in ecology and soil science with a focus on global change.

Aman Bhatta, Ph.D. Student

Aman is a fourth year PhD student in Resource Ecology Management. He is interested in using remote sensing to inform improved land and crop management. He has worked on programs supported by USAID and the government of Norway to identify and promote climate-smart agriculture in Nepal's smallholder farming systems. His current research interests include using high-resolution imagery to map field-level crop yield and spatio-temporal variation. 

Jia Li, Visiting Ph.D. Student 

Jia is a visiting Ph.D. student from the Department of Land Resource Management at Wuhan University. His research focuses on the intersection of land use policy, spatial data science, and low-carbon development. He integrates satellite data, causal inference methods, and policy analysis to explore sustainable land system transitions. 
 

Jiangpan Bian, M.Sc. Student

Jiangpan is a second-year M.Sc. student in Geospatial Data Sciences. She is also pursuing a Graduate Certificate in Complex Systems, With a background in computer science, she is broadly interested in ecosystem modeling and data mining for understanding complex environmental patterns and processes. Her current research focuses on estimating crop sowing dates and yields using high-resolution remote sensing data, aiming to improve agricultural monitoring and support climate-resilient farming practices.

Zhiqing Huang, M.Sc. Student

Zhiqing is a second-year M.Sc. student in Geospatial Data Sciences. Her research interests lie in the application of GIS, remote sensing and machine learning for environmental monitoring and agricultural sustainability. Her current thesis focuses on mapping rice phenology to identify planting dates and classify rice varieties in India using Sentinel-2 time-series imagery and Google Earth Engine.

Hantao Wang, M.Sc. Student

Hantao is a second-year master's student in Geospatial Data Science. He has varied interests in utilizing GIS in Environment and Urban Planning. For his master's thesis, he is identifying the best ways to map direct-seeded rice and transplanted rice in Chhattisgarh, India using Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-1 data and random forest.

Simon Wu, M.Sc. Student

Xinyu (Simon) Wu is a Master’s student in Data Science, also pursuing a certificate in Spatial Data Analysis. His research focuses on applying geospatial data science to address sustainability challenges. His recent work includes integrating spatial, policy, and agronomic datasets to inform sustainable agriculture and air quality interventions in India. He is passionate about leveraging spatial technologies to support agricultural and environmental outcomes.

Shaoying Zhang, M.Sc. Student

Shaoying is a second year M.Sc. student doing a dual degree in Geospatial Data Science and Big Data Analytics. She has varied interests in utilizing GIS and remote sensing techniques in environment and sustainability. Her current research aims to detect irrigation frequency in wheat systems in the Eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain using Sentinel-2 imagery.
LAB ALUMNI
Postdocs
  • Nishan Bhattarai - Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, University of Oklahoma
  • Mehedy Hassan - Research Associate at the University of Florida
  • Asif Ishtiaque - Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geography, Geology, and Planning, Missouri State University 
  • Sanjit Maiti - Scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Dairy Research Institute
  • Ambica Paliwal - Senior Scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
  • Gopal Penny - Scientist, Environmental Defense Fund
  • Preeti Rao (Postdoc & Lab manager) - Senior Community Data Analyst, IFF (CDFI)
  • Sukhwinder Singh - Senior Research Associate at the Public Health Foundation of India

Ph.D. Students
  • Divya Solomon - Atkinson Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

M.Sc. Thesis Students
  • Sai Cheruvu
  • Kunxi Li
  • Yin Liu - PhD Student, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne
  • Gautham Mathur - Project Scientist, Larry Walker Associates
  • Weiye Mei - Software Engineer, NVIDIA
  • Zac Mondschein - Research Assistant, SEAS, University of Michigan
  • Yiwen Shao - PhD Student, Michigan State University
  • Harrison Smith - PhD Student, University of Arkansas
  • Maanya Umashaanker - GIS Analyst, Amazon
  • Haoyu Wang - PhD Student, University of Texas at Austin
  • Xuewei Wang - Data Scientist at Data-Driven EnviroLab 
  • Weiqi Zhou - Research Analyst at World Resources Institute

Undergraduate Students (UROP & Doris Duke Conservation Scholars)
  • Toyosi Dickson
  • Laurie Gronewold
  • Shon Harris
  • Renee Jia-Er Siew
  • Halie Kish
  • ​Siqi Ma
  • Abby Murray
  • Danielle Newport
  • Grace Park
  • ​Julia Stuart
  • Nilay Thummer
  • ​Alliyiah Torrey 
  • ​Han Tran