Alumni - BSAIL

Recent Alumni

Rui Xu

Postdoctoral Associate

Rui Xu finished his Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering in 2021. Areas of interest include sensing technologies, automation and robotics. A project he worked on was developing the second generation of Berry Impact Recording
Device (BIRD) to detect the impacts which occur during mechanical harvest and packing of blueberries. He is now an assistant professor at Nanjing Agricultural University (China).

asilan@ufl.edu

Lizhi Jiang

Graduate Research Assistant

Lizhi Jiang pursued his PhD at the lab in 2025. His research focused on 3D reconstruction and phenotyping of agricultural crops like apples and peanuts. In December of 2025, he completed his PhD. He is now serving as an assistant professor
at Shihezi University (China).

jiang.lizhi@ufl.edu

Zhengkun Li

Graduate Research Assistant

Zhengkun was a M.S. student in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at UF beginning in 2023. He obtained his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (China) in 2020. Then he studied in Electrical and Computer Engineering and worked as a research assistant in Bio-sensing and Instrumental Lab at University of Georgia from 2021-2022. His research focuses on agricultural robotics, automation, and deep learning-based perception techniques.

zhengkun.li@ufl.edu

Farah Saeed

Graduate Research Assistant

Farah pursued a PhD in Computer Science at UGA. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences, Pakistan. Her research focuses on using computer vision and deep learning
techniques for high-throughput phenotyping.

farah.saeed@uga.edu

Javier Rodriguez-Sanchez

Graduate Research Assistant

Javier was the lab manager of the BSAIL Lab at UGA. He is pursuing a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He earned a bachelor degree in Electronic Engineering at the University of Granada (Spain), a bachelor degree in Industrial
Engineering at the University of Jaen (Spain), and a Master’s degree at the University of Almeria (Spain). He has been working as a researcher for the agri-food sector at the Technological Center for Agriculture Tecnova (Almeria,
Spain). His research interests include agricultural robotics, automation, remote sensing, and imaging technologies for plant phenotyping.

Javier.RodriguezSanchez@uga.edu

Allen Spain

Graduate Research Assistant

Allen Spain is a M.S. Student, Graduate Researcher, and formerly the Electronics Lead in UGA Small Satellite Research Lab. Allen’s research focus is on Field Robotics, Deep Learning for high-throughput phenotyping, and Multi-Agent
coordination.

avs81684@uga.edu

Shrinidhi Shridhar Adke

Graduate Research Assistant

Shrinidhi pursued his Master’s degree in Artificial intelligence in the lab. Areas of interest include Computer vision, Deep Learning, Autonomous Robotics. Shrinidhi Adke graduated in 2021.

shrinidhi.adke@uga.edu

Xueping Ni

Graduate Research Assistant

Xueping Ni was a visiting doctoral student at UGA. Her previous study was detection crucial points where easy to occur fruit bruise on fruit grading and packing lines and give mechanical improvement suggestions by dynamic simulation
the crucial points. During her stay at BSAIL Lab she focussed on detection of fruit bruise using structured-illumination imaging (SIR) Technology.

xueping.ni@uga.edu

Yu Jiang

Graduate Research Assistant

Yu Jiang pursued his Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the BSAIL lab. His research interests included image processing, machine learning, and information and robot systems in agriculture. During his stay at the BSAIL
lab, he focused on the design and implementation of the system for field-based high throughput phenotyping (HTP) for plants. Yu Jiang graduated in 2019 and accepted a faculty position at Cornell University.

yujiang@uga.edu

Shangpeng Sun

Graduate Research Assistant

Shangpeng Sun pursued his Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the BSAIL lab. His research interests included high throught phenotyping techonogy. Shangpeng Sun graduated in 2019 and aceppted a faculty positon at McGill
University.

ss30328@uga.edu

Aladdin Al-Khatib

Undergraduate Researcher

Aladdin is an undergraduate researcher majoring in Computer Systems Engineering. Research interests include applications of machine learning with robots, development of consumer electronics. In his free time, he enjoys exploring various
food alternatives such as cultured meats and plant-based alternatives.

halkhatib@uga.edu

Jawad Iqbal

Graduate Research Assistant

Jawad pursued his Master’s in Engineering with emphasis in Mechatronics/Robotics in the BSAIL lab. He worked on an autonomous ground rover for field data collection and high throughput phenotyping. His research interests included autonomous
robotic systems and machine vision. Jawad graduated in 2020 and is currently working as a manufaturing engineer at Lockheed Martin.

jawad.iqbal25@uga.edu

Tsunghan Han

Graduate Research Assistant

Tsunghan Han was a Ph.D. student in the BSAIL lab at UGA. He has a master degree in Mechatronics Engineering in National Taiwan University. His research interests include image processing, 3D reconstruction, phenotyping, and deep learning.

th09889@uga.edu

Robby Ratajczak

Undergraduate Researcher

Robby is an Intended Mechanical Engineering Major from Athens, Georgia. Robby has been working in undergraduate research since he was a senior in high school. He was a mechanical designer/fabricator for the BSAIL lab. Robby enjoys
working with his hands and hopes to eventually own his own Engineering firm that focuses on product development.

robbyrat@uga.edu

Yi Yang

Graduate Research Assistant

Yi Yang was a visiting doctoral student at UGA. He focused on non-destructive detection techniques of food quality. His research interests included chemometrics, deep learning, as well as spectral and image processing.

Yang11@uga.edu

Rikki Brown

Graduate Research Assistant

Rikki was a Mechanical Engineering student. He has passion on hydraulic equipment and robotic. At BSAIL, he worked with several PhD students and helped to develop autonomous Agriculture robot systems. Rikki is currently working at
Kubota Tractor Corporation.

rikkib@uga.edu

Huanyu Jiang, Ph.D

Visiting Professor

Dr. Jiang was a visiting scholar at BSAIL. He is a professor at the College of Biosystems Engineering and Food Science of Zhejiang University, and mainly engaged in agricultural intelligent equipment, facilities agricultural equipment,
agricultural robots, computer NDT technology and other aspects of scientific research and teaching.

Huanyu.Jiang@uga.edu

Piyush Pandey

Graduate Research Assistant

Piyush was a PhD student at UGA. He worked on projects related to high throughput phenotyping of plants. He has a master’s degree in Biological Systems Engineering from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

piyush.pandey@uga.edu

Weilin Wang, Ph.D.

Weilin had been a MS/PhD student in this lab from 2008-2013. His dissertation topic is "Multi-sensor data fusion platform for onion phenotyping". He is currently working in Monsanto Inc.

Jesse Kuzy

Jesse pursued his master degree in Artificial Intelligence in this lab and graduated in 2017.

Tharun Kumar Konduru

Graduate Student, M.S. Degree (2010-2013). Projects include: Development of Customized Gas Sensor Array for Onion Post-harvest Disease Detection.

Pengcheng Yu

Master student (2008-2011). Project: Microcontroller-based sensor development (Blueberry Impact Recording Device)

Shuxiang Fan, Ph.D.

Shuxiang Fan is a visiting scholar from National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, China. He received his Ph.D. from Northwest A&F University in 2016. He used to work on blueberry bruise detection by using spectral imaging technology.

Jianjun Chen, Ph.D.

Visiting scholar. Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor at the College of Science of Huazhong Agricultural University. Research interest: quality assessment of potatoes and blueberries by imaging and sensor technology.

Ruoyu Zhang, Ph.D.

Visiting scholar. Dr. Zhang is an associated professor at the College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Shihezi University. Research interest: detection of cotton quality by hyperspectral imaging and spectroscopy technology.

Haihua Wang, Ph.D.

Visiting Scholar. Dr. Wang is an associated professor at the College of Information and Electrical Engineering of China Agricultural University. Projects include: Onion Quality Assessment based on the Hyperspectral Imaging Line Scan System.

Adnan Mustafic, Ph.D.

Development of spectroscopic and imaging methods for sensing of agricultural crops

Svyatoslav Chugunov, Ph.D.

Monte Carlo multi-layered simulations of photon propagation in biological tissues using parallel computing techniques. Study of wetness in vegetation at leaf-scale with the use of hyperspectral tools. (February 1, 2013 – April 15, 2014)

Ayodeji Adedoyin, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Research Associate (Oct 2009 – April 2010). Projects include: Single Cotton Fiber Quality Characterization Using Fraunhofer Diffraction Analysis

Aaron Patrick

Aaron received his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Engineering from UGA, and he used to work on the development and applications of unmanned aerial systems in high throughput crop studies.

Juzhong Tan

Juzhong Tan used to work on sensing quality related properties of food materials by electronic nose and electronic nose based robot.

Jamal Hunter

Jamal anticipated the project of using handheld LiDAR for measuring morphological traits of blueberry bushes.

Megan Elizabeth Lusher

Megan is an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia who is majoring in agricultural engineering with an emphasis on natural resource management and structural systems. She helped in initiating the project of quantification of blueberry bush structure using a handheld LiDAR instrument.

Jagadish Kumar

Jagadish assisted in the project for implementing an Android application for the BIRD II sensor.

Yuri Pedroni Prado

Yuri Pedroni Prado was an undergraduate Industrial Control and Automation Engineering student originally from Brazil and in a one-year exchange program at the University of Georgia (2014). At the Biosensing laboratory he worked in a temporary position of Research Engineer Intern and his projects focused on microcontrolled wireless communication such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Xbee.

Kaya Sumire Abe

Kaya studies computer engineering at the Federal Technological University of Paranб, located in Curitiba/PR, Brazil, and was an exchange student at the University of Georgia, sponsored by Brazil Scientific Mobility Program. She used to work in a research, teaching, and community outreach project, the PET-CoCE group at her home university, which develops its activities primarily involving educational robotics and multidisciplinary computing topics based on open-source hardware and software resources.

Yang Liu

Yang Liu transferred from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on 2012. He started volunteering in Dr.Li’s lab in the summer of 2014. He used to work on a project developing high-throughput techniques to phenotype for watermelon breeding. The first task for this project was seed color quantification using machine vision and image processing.

Delmaries Gonzаlez

Undergraduate student majoring in Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Georgia, a transfer student from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez as of Spring 2013. She used to work on a robotics project, ‘Development of Robots for Weed Control in Organic Farming,’ in which a robotic starter kit from National Instruments is being used to develop an automated weeding platform to reduce the use of herbicides and labor in agriculture.