Welcome!

I am a Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science at Wageningen University and Research, in the Netherlands. On my website you may find about my research team, grants, teaching and publications. Check also the new community-driven, open-access journal Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling!

News!

• WUR presented in Brussels the 2021 Mansholt Lecture: Pathways towards digital transformation of food systems. The lecture and the discussion was recorded, and the booklet available for download. It was an honour to be on the writting team!

• I was interviewed by Food Bank News on what does blockchain have to do with food banking.

• Our recent review paper proposes an application-based roadmap for Digital Twins in agriculture. Digital Twins can be used pervasively at various spatial and temporal scales, and levels of complexity.

• My interview on Artificial Intelligence and Big Data meet Agriculture and Climate Change is available on the Global Greek Influence podcast.

• Our new Open Access paper in Agricultural Systems explores the benefits of machine learning in large-scale crop yield forecasting, contributing a machine learning baseline model that combines principles of crop modeling with machine learning. Early season predictions were comparable with the MARS Crop Yield Forecasting System. Accompanied with Open Data and Open Source software.

Agenda

I am involved in the (organization) of the following events:

• Panelist, ACOS 2021 (Applied Computational Sciences conference 2021), Oct 15, 2021, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

• Programme Committee Member, Enviroinfo 2021 (35th International Environmental Informatics Conference), Sep 27, 2021, Berlin, Germany.

• Programme Committee Member, Machine Learning Advances Environmental Science Workshop (MAES@ICPR2020), Jan 10, 2021, Milan, Italy.

• Keynote speaker, Participatory and Cross-Scale Modelling of Social-Ecological Systems, Oct 12, 2020, Lorentz Center@Snellius.

• co-Chair of the Programme Committee, Enviroinfo 2020 (34th International Environmental Informatics Conference, Digital Twins for Sustainability), Sep 23, 2020, Nicosia, Cyprus.

• Scientific Committee Member. Organizer of two sessions on Distributed computing in smart farming and agro-informatics, and New and improved methods in agricultural systems modelling, iEMSs 2020 (10th International Environmental Modelling and Software Society Conference, Modelling for Environmental Sustainability), Sep 14, 2020, Brussels, Belgium and online.

• Keynote speaker, AI in Natural Sciences and Technology Workshop (AINST@SETN2020), Sep 02, 2020, Athens, Greece.

• General chair of the 13th Symposium on Environmental Software Systems, ISESS 2020 (Data Science in Action), Feb 05, 2020, Wageningen.

• Scientific committee member, organizing a session on Methods and software to support modelling activities, iCropM 2020 (Crop Modelling for the Future), Feb 03, 2020, Montpellier, France.

• Organising committee member, Wageningen Data Science Week, Feb 03, 2020, Wageningen.

• Co-organizer and instructor, Graduate School Data Science for Agriculture and Food Security, Nov 25, 2019, Novi Sad, Serbia.

Recent journal articles

• Big data in agriculture: Between opportunity and solution, published in Agricultural Systems

• The current and future uses of machine learning in ecosystem service research, published in Science of The Total Environment

• Invited review: Toward a common language in data-driven mastitis detection research, published in Journal of Diary Science

• The flows of nature to people, and of people to nature: applying movement concepts to ecosystem services, published in Land

• Crop2ML: An open-source multi-language modeling framework for the exchange and reuse of crop model components, published in Environmental Modelling & Software

Full list of publications.

Academic Service

Academic Journal Editorial Boards

• Environmental Modelling and Software, (Associate Editor).

• Socio-Environmental Systems Modelling, (Managing Editor).

• Environmental Policy and Law, (Editorial Board Member).

Project Scientific Advisory Boards

• SUSCAP (Developing resource use efficiency for crops under future climate extremes and air quality), EU H2020 ERA-Net Cofund Action.

• AnaEE (Analysis and Experimentation on Ecosystems), European Strategic Forum on Research Infrastructures.

• IS-GEO Intelligent Systems for Geo-Sciences, EarthCube Research Coordination Network (NSF, USA).

• New Zealand Bioeconomy in the Digital Age (Harnessing the power of digital technologies to enable the transformation of New Zealand Food Systems), AgResearch, New Zealand.

• BEACON (Boosting Agricultural Insurance based on Earth Observation data), H2020 Research and Innovation Action.

My website

This is my web office! I have developed this habit to totally restructure my website every couple of years, as an excuse to sharpen my web development skills. Nowadays, I am porting my website from Wordpress to Jekyll, while changing hosts, so please be patient!