Purdue Names Yang Director of Digital Phenomics
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowYang Yang, a Dow AgroSciences research scientist specializing in plant sensing technology, has been named director of digital phenomics at Purdue University.
The newly-created position will be responsible for managing Purdue’s expanding phenomics research staff and infrastructure, as well as developing computational systems and tools that enable researchers to overcome challenges in the emerging field of high-throughput phenotyping.
Phenotyping is the process of using sensing technology to learn how the genetic makeup of a plant adapts and reacts to the environment to produce complex traits such as growth, tolerance and yield.
Yang received both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural engineering from Huazhong University in Wuhan, China. He earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Ohio State University.
He has published numerous studies on plant evaluation, sensing and contained-environment crop production.
Yang previously served at Purdue as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, where he led the design and construction of a controlled-environment facility and conducted experiments on pharmaceutical corn production.
He joined Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis in 2009 as a senior biologist and later served product characterization leader/associate research scientist, leading the development of a crop and environment monitoring system to better understand crop physiological processes and designing stress-management experiments for in-field high-throughput phenotype screening in agronomic trait development.
Purdue’s phenomics program is housed within the Institute for Plant Sciences, part of Purdue Moves, a series of university initiatives announced by President University President Mitch Daniels in 2013 to broaden the university’s global impact and enhance educational opportunities for its students.
Yang will start at Purdue on January 3, 2018.