Abstract: A capacity to maintain sustainable food supply for 9.1 billion people by 2050 would require reliance on engineering innovations to overcome challenges from several fronts, such as increased cost of energy, depletion of underground aquifers, farmland conversion to urban areas, and climate change. A major application of engineering innovation is in the form of incorporation of information and communication technologies into machinery, equipment, and sensors that are used in agricultural production systems. Ubiquitous use of internet of things (IoT)sensors is generating large amount of data that needs to be managed properly and converted into actionable information. A number of solutions are available but a variety of factors such as opaqueness about data ownership, high cost, longevity etc. are hindering their wider adoption by the farming community. This seminar will provide an exposure to research-based tools contributed by Digital Agriculture Discovery (DAD) lab for advancing data management, field sensing, machine learning, and communicating research-based outcomes in support of digital agriculture.

Dr. Dharmendra Saraswat is an associate professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at Purdue University. He received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering from the University of Allahabad; a master’s degree in agricultural engineering from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, and a Ph.D. in food, agricultural and biological Engineering from The Ohio State University.

Prior to coming to Purdue, Dr. Saraswat was a faculty member at the University of Arkansas, a scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, India and an assistant professor at Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture & Technology, Kanpur, India.

Dr. Saraswat’s overall research and extension efforts have been well recognized both nationally and internationally. He has received several awards including Fellow of Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers(2014), John W. White Outstanding Extension State Faculty Award (2014),American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE) Educational Aids Blue Ribbon Award (one in 2015 and two in 2013), Excellence in Remote Sensing and Precision Agriculture from National Association of County Agricultural Agents(2013), ASABE superior paper award (2012), Southern Region American Society of Horticultural Sciences Blue Ribbon Extension Communication Award (2012), Early career award and Innovation award (2011) from the University of Arkansas.

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