Yaping Xu's Academic Homepage

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My research lies at the intersection of remote sensing, geographic information science (GIScience), artificial intelligence, and environmental science. I develop novel methods that integrate geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI), machine learning, computer vision, and multi-source Earth observation data to better understand environmental and agricultural systems. My research focuses on applications including precision agriculture, plant and crop phenotyping, soil moisture estimation, environmental monitoring, and spatiotemporal modeling, with an emphasis on translating advanced AI techniques into scalable solutions for real-world geospatial challenges.

Through interdisciplinary collaborations, my group seeks to advance next-generation geospatial analytics by combining unmanned aerial systems (UAS), satellite remote sensing, high-performance computing, and explainable AI to support sustainable agriculture, ecosystem management, and informed environmental decision-making.

I served at Sam Houston State University as an assistant professor of remote sensing with Environmental and Geosciences from 2023 to July 2026. I had affiliated with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory as an Early Career Fellow. I also worked as a research associate at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA), in close collabration with Drs. Neal Stewart and Reggie Millwood on agricultural remote sensing and agro-ecosystems. With Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA), I led the UAV studies on biofuel crop phenotyping collaborated with the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and funded by DOE. I also lead a study funded by DARPA that uses an airborne and terrestrial hyperspectral camera (imaging spectroscopy) to study how plants respond to environmental stressors. 

Prior to that, I worked as a postdoc researcher in the Asner Lab at Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science from 2019 to 2020. 

I completed my bachelor’s and master’s degree from China. I received my Ph.D. in geography, focusing on GIScience and Remote Sensing from Louisiana State University (2019).  During my Ph.D. study at LSU, I became interested in scientific communication.  I competed in the Louisiana Sea Grant Coastal Connection Thesis Presentation, a modified version of the “Three Minute Thesis,” and won the 2nd Place. In addition, I was a co-founder and president of the GIScience Club, an official student association at Louisiana State University. 

I participated in the Southeast Agriculture project sponsored by NASA and served as the team lead in 2016.

I invite you to check my academic portals (my Google Scholar, GitHub, and Twitter), which you can find in the contact section below. You are also welcome to check my YouTube channel on UAV Tutorial for real-world applications.