Digital Forestry Team

OUR TEAM

Our grassroots effort across the Purdue campus is leveraging digital technology with multidisciplinary expertise to revolutionize forestry and build a globally competitive next generation workforce for the information age.

The Institute for Digital Forestry brings together a multidisciplinary research team from forestry, engineering, geomatics, computer science, aviation technology, information science and other disciplines to explore remote sensing, big data and artificial intelligence and methods for applying them to forestry. The team is supported by Purdue Research Computing, offering world-class cloud computing and a network of supercomputers.

LEADERSHIP

Songlin Fei

Songlin Fei

Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor and Dean’s Chair of Remote Sensing | Director of Institute for Digital Forestry

Areas of focus: Forest ecology, modeling, remote sensing

Ayman Habib

Ayman Habib

Lyles School of Civil Engineering
Thomas A. Page Professor of Civil Engineering and Assoc Director of the Institute for Digital Forestry

 Areas of focus: System integration, system calibration, geo-referencing, data integration/fusion

Melba Crawford

Melba Crawford

Lyles School of Civil Engineering and Agronomy
Nancy Uridil and Francis Bossu Professor

 Areas of focus: Remote sensing, machine learning algorithms and applications

Brady Hardiman

Brady Hardiman

Forestry and Natural Resources
Assistant Professor

 Areas of focus: Structure and function in coupled natural and human ecosystems

Carl Huetteman

Carl Huetteman

Institute for Digital Forestry
Managing Director
Areas of focus: Strategic management of timelines, deliverables, budgets, and internal and external sponsored programs

FACULTY

Daniel Aliaga

Daniel Aliaga

Computer Science
Associate Professor

Areas of focus: Computer graphics/vision, deep visual computing, machine learning

Bedrich Benes

Bedrich Benes

Computer Science
Professor
Areas of focus: Computer graphics, 3D vegetation reconstruction, functional structural plant models, deep learning
Aniket Bera

Aniket Bera

Computer Science
Associate Professor
Areas of focus: Robotics, Robot Perception, AR/VR, Motion Prediction and Planning, Robot Navigation in Complex Terrains
Victor Chen

Victor Chen

Polytechnic Institute
Associate Professor

Areas of focus: Human-Computer Interaction, Information Visualization, Visual Analytics

Anna Conrad

Anna Conrad

USDA Forest Service
Research Plant Pathologist
Areas of focus: Understanding and managing diseases of hardwood trees within the Central Hardwood Forest Region
John Couture

John Couture

Entomology & Forestry and Natural Resources
Assistant Professor
Areas of focus: Plant chemical and physiological ecology and vegetation spectroscopy
James Garrison

James L. Garrison

Aeronautics and Astronautics
Professor of AAE, with courtesy appointment in ECE and faculty affiliate with ESE
Areas of focus: Earth remote sensing
Rado Gazo

Rado Gazo

Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor
Areas of focus: Wood and tree identification, quality assessment and processing
Matthew Ginzel

Matthew Ginzel

Entomology, Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor, Director, Hardwood Tree Improvement and Regeneration Center (HTIRC) |
Jacob Hosen

Jacob Hosen

Forestry and Natural Resources
Assistant Professor
Areas of focus: IoT, sensor development
Joseph Hupy

Joseph Hupy

Aviation and Transportation Technology
Associate Professor
Areas of focus: UAS data collection, processing and analysis
Douglass Jacobs

Douglass Jacobs

Forestry and Natural Resources
Fred M van Eck Professor of Forest Biology, Associate Head of Extension |
Areas of focus: reforestation and restoration, eco-physiology of forest regeneration in response to management and environmental stress
Mike Jenkins

Mike Jenkins

Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor

Areas of focus: Forest ecology, disturbance ecology, invasive species

Jian Jin

Jian Jin

Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Assistant Professor

Areas of focus: Machine systems engineering, data science, digital agriculture

Jinha Jung

Jinha Jung

Lyles School of Civil Engineering
Assistant Professor

Areas of focus: Remote sensing, LiDAR, HPC for remote sensing applications, WebGIS

Nicole Kong

Nicole Kong

Information Studies
Associate Professor

Areas of focus: GIS, remote sensing, geospatial analysis, geoportal

Damon Lercel

Damon Lercel

Purdue Polytechnic Institute
Assistant Professor

Areas of focus: Unmanned aircraft systems, advanced air mobility, workforce development

Zhao Ma

Zhao Ma

Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor

Areas of focus: Decision-making in environmental and natural resource management, conservation in the context of social-ecological change

Mindy Mallory

Mindy Mallory

Agricultural Economics
Associate Professor, Clearing Corporation Charitable Foundation Endowed Chair for Food and Agricultural Marketing |

Areas of focus: Analyzing risks and tradeoffs in commodity and resource markets

Cheryl Qian

Cheryl Zhenyu Qian

Art and Design, Industrial Design, Rueff School Faculty
Chair and Professor
Areas of focusEmploying innovative design thinking into the domain of visual analytics
Michael Saunders

Michael Saunders

Forestry and Natural Resources
Associate Professor
Areas of focus: Solicultural systems, improvement of growth and yields, and influence of silviculture on wildlife habitat
Gang Shao

Gang Shao

Information Studies
Associate Professor

Areas of focus: Remote sensing, data visualization and data science education

Guofan Shao

Guofan Shao

Forestry and Natural Resources
Professor

Areas of focus: Optical remote sensing, automated tree measurement

Yu She

Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering
Assistant Professor

Areas of focus: Intersection of mechanical design, sensory perception, and dynamic control, human-safe collaborative robots

Jianmin Wang

Jianmin Wang

Digital Forestry
Research Assistant Professor
Research: Remote sensing of forests
Mark Ward

Mark Ward

Statistics
Professor, Director of Data Mine |

Areas of focus Analysis of algorithms, data science, science of information, game theory, and large-scale computation

Baijian Yang

Baijian Yang

Computer and Information Technology
Professor, Associate Dean for Research in Polytech

Areas of focus: Applied machine learning, cloud computing, big data

Raymond Yeh

Raymond Yeh

Computer Science
Assistant Professor

Areas of focus: Computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning

Song Zhang

Song Zhang

Mechanical Engineering
Professor, Assistant Head for Experiential Learning | Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Areas of focus: Design, Systems, measurements, and controls

Tonglin Zhang

Tonglin Zhang

Statistics
Associate Professor

Areas of focus: mathematical statistics, spatial statistics, Bayesian analysis, high-dimensional data analysis, big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence

Carla Zoltowski

Carla Zoltowski

Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Associate Professor of Engineering Practice
Areas of focus: experiential education

STAFF

Ericka Bethel

Ericka Bethel

Agricultural Communication
Digital Content Specialist
Areas of focus: communications, media
Nancy Cramer

Nancy Cramer

Agricultural Research and Graduate Education
Administrative Assistant
Areas of focus: communications, events, operations
Jarrod Doucette

Jarrod Doucette

Ag Data Services
Lead Research Analyst

Areas of focus: Combining data architecture and stewardship to improve analytic and visualization capabilities

Lenny Farlee

Lenny Farlee

FNR Extension
Extension Forester
PFEN G021D
765.494.2153

Areas of focus: Providing relevant, science-based forest management and tree regeneration information for the Central Hardwood Region.

Jackie Getson

Jackie Getson

Institute for Digital Forestry
Project Manager

Areas of focus: Logistics and operations of Institute for Digital Forestry

Benny Goller

Benny Goller

Ag Data Services
Lead Research Analyst

Areas of focus: Experimental design, data quality control, analytic pipelines, simulations, and visualization

Katie Grong

Katie Grong

Institute for Digital Forestry
Research Associate
PFEN 126

Areas of focusgenetic tree improvement, online database for synthesizing forest invasive pests

Ben Hancock

Ben Hancock

ABE
Programmer

Areas of focus: working with Jinha Jung to develop a platform on collected UAS data including public catalog making data more accessible

Ben McCallister

Ben McCallister

Forestry and Natural Resources
Urban Forestry Specialist
765.494.3625

Areas of focus: Utilize Digital Forestry LiDAR and spectral photography to enhance practices in both arboriculture and urban forestry

Standa Pejša

Standa Pejša

Purdue Libraries
Data Curator
STEW 242
765.496.3736
Cameron Wingren

Cameron Wingren

Forestry and Natural Resources
Unmanned Aerial Systems Data Collection Specialist

Areas of focus: UAS data collection, geospatial data collection/processing, data collection, processing, and dissemination between researchers and stakeholder groups

Grad Students and Postdoctoral Researchers

Abdelrahman Abdelghany

Abdelrahman Abdelghany

Lab: Habib, Research: individual tree segmentation and enhancement of forest inventory applications
Ph.D.
Christopher Ardohain

Christopher Ardohain

Lab: Songlin Fei
Ph.D.
Lena Azima

Lena Azima

Lab: Jinha Jung/Songlin Fei
Ph.D.
Joshua Carpenter

Joshua Carpenter

Lab: Jinha Jung, Research: tree inventory
Ph.D.
Gaia Cervini

Gaia Cervini

Lab: Jinha Jung, Research: Thermal imagery analysis and applications to transportation sustainability and resilience
Ph.D.
Dennis Choi

Dennis Choi

Lab: Brady Hardiman and Songlin Fei, Research: LiDAR structure
Postdoc
Archana Choudhari

Archana Choudhari

Lab: Jim Garrison
Zachary Dichtl

Zachary Dichtl

Lab: Brady Hardiman, Research: EEE
Ph.D.
Aziz Ebrahimi

Aziz Ebrahimi

Lab: Anna Conrad/Douglass Jacobs, Research: Chemotyping
Ph.D.
Aser Eissa

Aser Eissa

Lab: Ayman Habib, Research: semantic segmentation
Ph.D.
Adnan Firoze

Adnan Firoze

Lab: Daniel Aliaga, Research: AI for urban tree
Ph.D.
Arnav Goel

Arnav Goel

Lab: Jinha Jung
Kanaan Hardaway

Kanaan Hardaway

Lab: Brady Hardiman
Ph.D.
Liu He

Liu He

Lab: Daniel Aliaga, Research: Modeling
Mona Hodaei

Mona Hodaei

Lab: Ayman Habib, Research: Providing Deep Learning Solution
Yunmei Huang

Yunmei Huang

Lab: Songlin Fei, Research: AI species Id
Ph.D.
Elisabeth Joll

Elisabeth Joll

Lab: John Couture, Research: Detection and prediction of spotted lanternfly spread at local and landscape levels
Ph.D.
Delaney Jones

Delaney Jones

Lab: Ginzel, Research: Improving trapping methods for invasive insect pests of trees
Ph.D.
Minyoung Jung

Minyoung Jung

Lab: Jinha Jung, Research: National scale, field scale applications
Postdoc
Hansae Kim

Hansae Kim

Lab: Jinha Jung
Jae Joong Lee

Jae Joong Lee

Lab: Bedrich Benes
 Bosheng Li

Bosheng Li

Lab: Bedrich Benes, Research: AI
Ph.D.
Bowen Li

Bowen Li

Lab: Guofan Shao, Research: Mapping
MSc
Xuan Li

Xuan Li

Lab: Jian Jin
Yawen Lu

Yawen Lu

Lab: Victor Chen, Research: Computer vision, machine learning and scene understanding
Ph.D.
Ismail Olaniyi

Ismail Olaniyi

Lab: Jinha Jung
Sylvia Park

Sylvia Park

Lab: John Couture & Douglass Jacobs, Research: disease
Ph.D.
Jinyuan Shao

Jinyuan Shao

Lab: Songlin Fei, Research: AI point cloud
Ph.D.
Sang-Yeop Shin

Sang-Yeop Shin

Lab: Ayman Habib
Camille Shoaf

Camille Shoaf

Lab: Brady Hardiman, Research: Urban Forest Adaptation
M.S.
Su Sun

Su Sun

Lab: Yingjie Chen
Bina Thapa

Bina Thapa

Lab: Songlin Fei, Research: tree ecophysiology
Postdoc
Andrei Toca

Andrei Toca

Lab: Douglass Jacobs
Postdoc
Charlie Warner

Charlie Warner

Lab: Rado Gazo Research: CentralBark Image Dataset and Tree Species Classification using Deep Learning
M.S.
Troy Weber

Troy Weber

Lab: Hardiman, FNR
Ph.D.
Jiaxing Zhang

Jiaxing Zhang

Lab: Songlin Fei and Ayman Habib
Postdoc
Chunxi Zhao

Chunxi Zhao

Lab: Ayman Habib Research: LiDAR
Ph.D.
Hong Zhao

Hong Zhao

Lab: Yang
Ph.D.
Xiaochen Zhou

Xiaochen Zhou

Lab: Bedrich Benes, Research: Tree Modeling and Reconstruction for Forestry Digital Twins
Ph.D.