On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Lin Liu. By 2050, the population in the Africa continent will double and food demand will triple. How can we sustainably produce staple food to feed the future population in the backdrop of climate change? Lin Liu’s dissertation research focuses on using agricultural technologies, including smart devices, crop modeling and remote-sensing images, to assess agricultural systems in Africa and Central America. Specifically, her research aimed at providing timely and accurate yield forecasts for cornfields in Tanzania, improving yields of staple crops (e.g. corn and yam) while preserving soil carbon in Tanzania and Ghana, and monitoring crop growth in small fields in African countries and Honduras. She recently defended her dissertation and will be awarded a dual-major Ph.D. degree from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Michigan State University. She has conducted agricultural research and development projects contributing to a more efficient and sustainable crop production system under the supervision of Dr. Bruno Basso. Her study regions span from smallholder fields in Malawi, Tanzania, Ghana and Honduras to large fields in the US.
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