Speaker: Phuong Dao, CSU

Abstract:
The frequency, intensity, and duration of plant stressors are increasing due to climate change, leading to large-scale vegetation shifts and heightened pest and pathogen infestations that suppress the entire agricultural and natural systems. The complex interactions between plants and environmental stressors are complex, varying across space and time, making them difficult to monitor using traditional laboratory analyses, field surveys, and statistical methods. However, these challenges can be addressed by integrating multimodal remote sensing, high-throughput plant phenotyping, geospatial science, biochemical and bioinformatics approaches, and machine learning. In this talk, Dr. Dao will discuss how he combines these digital tools and knowledge in plant biology and ecology to examine how plants interact with drought, pests, and pathogens in agricultural and natural systems across spatial and temporal scales.

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Phuong Dao is a remote sensing and geospatial scientist, a plant ecologist, and a digital agriculture scientist. He is broadly interested in characterizing plant-disturbance interactions using the integration of remote sensing, high-throughput plant phenotyping, biochemical and bioinformatics methods, and machine learning. He is also interested in developing novel machine learning image analysis methods and imaging systems to understand these complex interactions across spatial and temporal scales and from controlled environments to field settings. Dr. Dao is currently an Assistant Professor of Digital Agriculture in the Department of Agricultural Biology at Colorado State University. He is also an affiliate faculty in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. Dr. Dao also developed and is currently advising the Agricultural Data Science minor program. Prior to joining CSU, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the NSF-ASCEND Biology Integration Institute. He earned his dual PhD in Physical Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Toronto in 2021.