Aparna Phalke

Self-motivated research scientist with excellent skills in management, product strategy, cloud computing, big data analysis, agronomy, Earth Observation/Remote Sensing, GIS, environmental sciences, Food Security/Sovereignty studies, machine learning algorithms and teaching. Currently through SERVIR I address challenges related to Food Security/Sovereignty, climate change, land use and sustainability using earth observations.

My dissertation research has developed and published novel methods: i) to better understand how human’s use the land, particularly for agricultural activities using satellite Earth Observation/Remote Sensing, geospatial tools, machine learning and econometric models ; and ii) to investigate the various ways in which remotely sensed observations can improve crop area estimates from individual fields to entire countries. Overall, my Ph.D. dissertation is a sincere attempt to help farmers for better yields, securing their farms from early knowledge of dangers and bringing the awareness of agricultural support policies with advanced technology (such as AI, cloud computing and satellite data processing).

Passionate to empower women and farmer livelihood who have less or no access to resources! I am also an enthusiastic athlete with International Karate Kick Boxing gold medal, Karate coach since age of 9 and I like to learn new languages and so far, I can speak fluently in 7+ languages.