Ansh Ankul
Lead AI Research Engineer, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Ansh Ankul is a Lead AI Research Engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he develops and evaluates AI systems for agricultural decision support. His work focuses on large language model benchmarking and AI AgriBench, a public initiative building transparent, expert-grounded evaluations of AI-powered agronomic advisory systems.
Muthukumar Bagavathiannan
Professor, Texas A&M University
Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Ph.D., is the Billie Turner Professor of Agronomy in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University. His research integrates precision agriculture with weed ecology and integrated weed management, with expertise in UAV-based weed mapping, AI/ML-enabled weed recognition, and site-specific management. His program also develops and evaluates novel nonchemical technologies for more efficient and sustainable weed control.
Thierry E. Besançon
Associate Professor and Extension Weed Science Specialist, Rutgers University
Dr. Thierry E. Besançon is an Associate Professor and Extension Weed Science Specialist for Specialty Crops at Rutgers University, where his research focuses on integrating emerging technologies, including precision-targeted spraying, robotics, laser weeding, and electrical weed control, into sustainable weed management programs. His work aims to help specialty crop growers reduce herbicide use, address herbicide resistance, and improve the efficiency and sustainability of weed management.
Emily Bick
Assistant Professor of Precision Pest Ecology & Extension Specialist of Field & Forage Crops
Dr. Emily Bick serves as an assistant professor of precision pest ecology & extenison specialist of field and forage crops at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work focuses on insect population dynamics where she applies sensors, models and machine learning to improve pest monitoring and agricultural decision making. Dr. Bick is the inventor of the Insect Eavesdropper, a patented sensor that detects, identifies, and quantifies insects from plant vibroscapes.
Baskar Ganapathysubramanian
Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Iowa State University
Director of the NSF/USDA-NIFA AIIRA
Baskar Ganapathysubramanian is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Iowa State University and Director of the NSF/USDA-NIFA AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture (AIIRA). His research develops scalable foundation models, computer vision, and agentic AI systems for agriculture, with a particular focus on detecting pests, weeds, and diseases and translating those detections into actionable crop-management decisions at scale.
Liang Dong
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Professor
Dr. Liang Dong is currently a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Precision Agriculture and a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Georgia. His research focuses on developing novel sensor technologies for real-time monitoring of soil conditions, plant health, and environmental factors, with the goal of addressing challenges in the water–energy–food–health nexus. Dr. Dong is also interested in advancing sensor systems to promote animal health and welfare.
Katie Gold
Assistant Professor and Susan Eckert Lynch Faculty Fellow, Cornell University
Dr. Kaitlin (Katie) Gold is an Assistant Professor of Grape Pathology in the Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University where she holds primary research and extension responsibilities for grape disease management in New York State.
Daniel Goldman
Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Daniel Goldman is a professor of physics at Georgia Tech (GT) and the CEO and co-founder of Ground Control Robotics (GCR). His GT group studies locomotion of animals and robots in complex terrain and GCR is a spin out devoted to commercializing these discoveries to create robots that move effectively in dangerous, dull and dirty environments.
Manoj Karkee
Norman and Sharon Scott Professor, Cornell University
Editor-in-Chief, Computers and Electronics in Agriculture
Dr. Manoj Karkee is the Norman and Sharon Scott Professor at the Biological and Environmental Engineering Department at Cornell University. He received his PhD in Agricultural Engineering and Human Computer Interaction from Iowa State University. Dr. Karkee leads a strong research program in the area of sensing, machine vision and #AgRobotics, and has published widely in such journals as Computers and Electronics in Agriculture’ and ‘Journal of Field Robotics’. Dr. Karkee was awarded ‘2020 Railbird Engineering Concept of the Year’ by ASABE, and was recognized as ‘2019 Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and IoT’ by Connected World magazine.
Lauren Lazaro
Assistant Professor, University of Georgia | Extension Precision Agriculture Specialist
Dr. Lauren Lazaro is an Assistant Professor and Extension Precision Agriculture Specialist in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at the University of Georgia. Her program emphasizes precision agriculture approaches through optimizing current and emerging technologies, integrated management programs, and data-driven decision tools to improve efficiency in row crop production systems. Through applied research and Extension programming, she works closely with growers to implement precision management practices that enhance productivity and sustainability across southeastern cropping systems.
Jaydeep Rane
CEO & Co-Founder, Scanit Technologies
Jaydeep Rane is the CEO & Co-Founder of Scanit Technologies, bringing deep expertise in data science and applied AI. He has a Master’s in computer science from NC State University and has held prominent roles at RedHat (IBM) and DataRobot. Jaydeep is focused on unlocking new, farm-level data to power transformative agricultural AI.
Chris Reberg-Horton
Professor, Department of Crop and Soil Sciences | Platform Director, Resilient Agricultural Systems | Assistant Director of Collaborative Research, Center for Environmental Farming Systems
Dr. Reberg-Horton is an agronomist working on sustainable agriculture, cover crops, low cost IoT systems and on-farm trial networks. He is a professor in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, the Platform Director for Resilient Agricultural Systems at the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative and the Assistant Director of Collaborative Research for the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) at NC State University.
Daniel Sabo
Senior Research Scientist, Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Sabo is a Senior Research Scientist whose work focuses on volatile organic compound (VOC) profiling to detect plant stress, disease, and aflatoxin risk in peanut systems. His research has advanced VOC-based detection of toxigenic Aspergillus and tomato spotted wilt virus, supporting earlier intervention and improved crop protection strategies.
Jin Sun
Assistant Professor, University of Georgia
Jin Sun is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at the University of Georgia, where he leads research in computer vision and deep learning. His work spans object detection, tracking, and 3D reconstruction, with active applications in agricultural AI and scientific discovery.
Xin (Rex) Sun
Endowed Chair and Inaugural Director, North Dakota State University
Xin (Rex) Sun is Endowed Chair and Inaugural Director of the Peltier Institute for Advancement in Agricultural Technology at North Dakota State University, where he leads a research group developing AI, computer vision, and robotic systems for precision crop production. His work spans UAV- and ground-based weed detection, hyperspectral imaging for early disease and pest damage identification, and autonomous field platforms that translate these sensing advances into real-time crop protection decisions.
Chad Yagow
Director – Agronomy, Industry Relations and Regulatory Affairs, Verdant Robotics
Chad Yagow is a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and has spent his career in the ag equipment industry, with 24-years at John Deere where he helped bring the See & Spray products to market. He now serves as Director – Agronomy, Industry Relations and Regulatory Affairs for Verdant Robotics, a company that sells the Sharpshooter application system which utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to precisely apply crop protectant products.