Meha Jain, Assistant Professor

​I am an Assistant 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. To do this work, I combine remote sensing and geospatial analyses with household-level and census datasets to examine farmer decision-making and agricultural production across large spatial and temporal scales. 

Victor Prudente, Postdoctoral Fellow

Victor is a Postdoctoral Fellow working on a NASA funded project to understand climate change impact 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 farmer decision-making in the face of climate change.

Aman Bhatta, Ph.D. Student

Aman is a first year PhD student in Resource Ecology Management. He is interested in using remote sensing to inform improved land and crop management decisions. 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. 

Divya Solomon, Ph.D. Student

Divya is a fifth year PhD student in Resource, Policy and Behavior. She is interested in studying changes in land and agrarian relations, migration, livelihoods, gender, food and nutrition security, and the well-being of rural communities in the global south. Previously Divya worked with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) on understanding the vulnerability and adaptation of agrarian and forest-dependent communities in semi-arid regions in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. For her PhD she is interested in using interdisciplinary methods to understand the drivers and outcomes of short and long term risk management strategies to multiple climatic and non-climatic risks in rural agricultural communities.

Gautam Mathur, M.Sc. Student

Gautam is a Master’s student in Geospatial Data Science. He is interested in using remote sensing and geospatial data to track the health and use of natural resources. He studied Environmental Science and Management at UC Davis, where he specialized in Natural Resource Management and GIS. He then worked at Land IQ LLC, where he participated in crop mapping projects based in the western United States. This grew his interest in agricultural land and water use, and the effect of climate-related warming and resource limitations on agricultural productivity and farmer decision-making. In graduate school, he hopes to explore these interests in the context of smallholder farms in developing nations.

Zachary Mondschein, M.Sc. Student

Zac is a Master’s student in Geospatial Data Science. He is interested in using geospatial technologies and social science techniques to examine vulnerability and adaptation to global environmental changes in rural agrarian communities. He studied environmental chemistry at Colby College, where he developed an interest in understanding local consequences of global biogeochemical cycles. Previously, Zac has served as a secondary education volunteer with the Peace Corps in Guinea, West Africa. He has also worked with USAID and NGOs to support agroforestry and public health extension work in Central and South America.
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; Fulbright-Kalam Climate 
                       Fellow for Postdoctoral Research (while at Michigan). 
Ambica Paliwal - Senior Scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Gopal Penny - Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geography, National University of Singapore  
Preeti Rao (Postdoc & Lab manager) - Project Scientist at Satelytics
Sukhwinder Singh - Senior Research Associate at the Public Health Foundation of India

M.Sc. Thesis Students
Yin Liu - PhD Student, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne
Weiye Mei - PhD Student, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaigne
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 Assistant 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