Kenneth A Sudduth has been a Research Agricultural Engineer with ARS in Columbia for over 30 years and has been Research Leader of the Cropping Systems and Water Quality Research Unit since early 2021. His research focuses on solving high-priority problems within the broad context of precision agriculture to address soil and landscape variability and optimize production, economic return, and environmental quality of agricultural systems. In personal and team research, Dr. Sudduth works to develop decision support tools, including advanced sensor technology, for on-farm implementation of sustainable and resilient cropping systems and participates in the evaluation of such systems. Dr. Sudduth received his BS and MS from the University of Missouri, and his PhD from the University of Illinois, all in Agricultural Engineering. Prior to joining ARS, he spent four years at the John Deere Product Engineering Center in Iowa. Over the years, he has been active in numerous professional societies, including serving as the 2014–2016 President of the International Society of Precision Agriculture.
Jianfeng Zhou is an Associate Professor of Agricultural Systems Technology at the Division of Plant Science and Technology. He received a PhD degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Washington State University in 2014. He joined the University of Missouri in 2016 with a research and teaching appointment. Dr. Zhou teaches courses related to sensors, control and internet of things technology in agricultural systems. His research interests mainly focus on digital and precision agriculture, computer vision, high-throughput crop phenotyping, robotic harvesting technologies and precision livestock farming. Dr. Zhou authored more than 50 journal papers and six book chapters, and he edited two books. His research also resulted in serval invention disclosures and patents. Zhou serves as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Plant Science, Journal of ASABE, and guest editor for several other journals.
