Professors to Advance Agricultural Technologies

May 1, 2024 | Hannah Buchanan

Advancing Agricultural Technologies

UT Tyler received nearly $500,000 in research grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the department’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to advance agricultural technologies. Learn more about the teams’ leads and their respective research projects.

Enhancing Crop Farming

The university received $191,150 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service to enhance drones-based frameworks for imagery and crop monitoring on large farms.

Dr. Prabha Sundaravadivel, a UT Tyler assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, will collaborate with researchers at the USDA-ARS Crop Production Systems Unit in Stoneville, Mississippi, on the project.

Sundaravadivel’s research focuses on developing edge-intelligent systems for environmental sensing applications; application-specific architectures for smart health care; bio-inspired soft robotics; and underwater monitoring frameworks. Read more.

Helping Farmers Investigate Plant Health

UT Tyler also received nearly $300,000 from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative to help farmers investigate plant health.

Dr. Shawana Tabassum, the UT Tyler Mary John and Ralph Spence Professor of Electrical Engineering, serves as a principal investigator on the project.

Tabassum’s research focuses on the development of flexible sensors and electronics using micro/nanoelectronics and photonics technologies. She applies this expertise to various areas, including plant sciences, biomedicine, and sustainable and climate-smart agriculture. Read more.