Andualem S. Shiferaw received his Ph.D. in Natural Resources Sciences with a specialization in Climate Assessment and Impacts from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2023. His dissertation, titled "Assessing the Skill of State-of-the-Art Seasonal Climate Prediction Techniques over Ethiopia", encompassed testing the performance of global circulation models (GCMs), assessing various bias correction techniques, and employing the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) for dynamically downscaling coarse resolution forecasts. Currently, he is a Post-doctoral Research Associate at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC), School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he works on a joint NDMC-USDA project focusing on climate risk management in agriculture. This project involves applying crop models to improve decision-making in crop production and identifying optimum agronomic practices that enhance ecosystem services and climate resilience while maintaining productivity. Before his Ph.D., Andualem worked as a climate change researcher at the National Meteorology Institute of Ethiopia, and later as a research agroclimatologist and Director of the Climate and Geospatial Research Program at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). His research interests include climate modeling, agroclimatology, crop modeling, cover cropping, seasonal climate prediction, and the statistical and dynamical downscaling of climate predictions/projections.
Dr. Tala Awada is the associate dean in the Agricultural Research Division (ARD) at the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (IANR), a professor of plant ecophysiology in the School of Natural Resources, a fellow of the Robert Daugherty Global Water for Food Institute, and a fellow of the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI). She co-leads the Nebraska PR-HPA Long-term Agroecosystem Research (LTAR-ARS/USDA) network site. She received a B.S. in Agricultural Engineering from the Lebanese University in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1992, a M.S. in Environmental and Renewable Resources from the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania, Greece, in 1995, and a Ph.D. in Physiological Plant Ecology from the University of Saskatchewan in 2000. Her research focuses on the sustainability, productivity, and resilience of agricultural, grassland, and forest ecosystems under climate variability and change and anthropogenic management.
Dr. Brian Wardlow is an associate professor and a remote sensing scientist in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He received a B.S. in 1996 in geography and geology from Northwest Missouri State University, an M.A. in 1996 in geography from Kansas State University, and a Ph.D. in 2005 in geography from the University of Kansas. He joined UNL as a research assistant professor in 2006 and led the GIScience program at the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) for six years. He has also been a faculty fellow with the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT). In March 2012, he became an associate professor in the School of Natural Resources (SNR), and in April 2018, he became a full professor in SNR. His current remote sensing research is centered on three predominant themes: classifying and mapping land use and land cover (LULC) patterns in agricultural landscapes; characterizing vegetation dynamics such as phenology and biophysical characteristics; and drought monitoring and early warning.
Dr. Javed Iqbal currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He earned his B.Sc. in Soil Science in 2004 and his M.Sc. in Soil Science in 2006 from the University of Agriculture. In 2009, he completed his Ph.D. in Soil Science from Huazhong Agriculture University. Following his doctoral studies, he held positions as a Post-Doctoral Research Scholar at the University of Kentucky from 2009 to 2011 and as a Post-Doctoral Research Scientist at Iowa State University from 2011 to 2016. From 2006 to 2019, he served as a Research Soil scientist at Iowa State University. Since 2019, Dr. Iqbal has been an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is actively engaged in professional societies including the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America. His research interests encompass a broad range of topics such as nutrient management and water quality, soil fertility, site-specific nutrient management, nutrient use efficiency, nutrient losses, greenhouse gas emissions, and fertilizer and manure use.
Dr. Tulsi P. Kharel is a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University. He obtained a B.Sc. in agriculture in 1998 from Tribhuvan University, a M.Sc. in plant science in 2011 from South Dakota State University, and a Ph.D. in plant science in 2016 from South Dakota State University. He was a soil science geospatial intern at The Climate Corporation in 2016. He joined Cornell University in 2017 and has been a post-doctoral research associate since that time.
Dr. Clement D.D. Sohoulande is a research agricultural engineer at the USDA-ARS. He received a M.S. in agronomy and agricultural engineering from the University of Abomey Calavi, a M.E. in water and environmental engineering from the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering, and a Ph.D. in water resources management from Texas A&M University. Before he joined USDA-ARS as a research agricultural engineer, he worked as an assistant researcher and a research associate at Texas A&M University. His research interests lie in the fields of agroclimatology, modeling the multiscale impact of livestock manure management technologies, hydrological and crop modeling, and the inclusion of remote sensing in agricultural water management.
