Rate My Professor Phuong Dao

Phuong Dao served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural Biology at Colorado State University from 2023 to 2025, also holding faculty appointments in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability and the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology. He developed and advised the Agricultural Data Science undergraduate minor program, approved in December 2023 and launching in Fall 2024, and introduced new courses including Agricultural Data Science and Geographic Information Systems in Agriculture. Dao's academic background includes a BEng in Surveying Engineering from the University of Mining and Geology, Vietnam (2011), an MSc in Remote Sensing Science and Technology from National Central University, Taiwan (2015), and a dual-degree PhD in Physical Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Toronto, Canada (2021), for which he received the National Best PhD Thesis Award from the Canadian Remote Sensing Society in 2022. Prior to CSU, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 2021 to 2023, investigating genetically-driven chemical defenses in aspen forests in response to insect herbivore impacts.

Dao's research specializations include remote sensing, geospatial science, machine learning applications in agriculture, plant ecophysiology, precision agriculture, and plant-disturbance interactions. Directing the Remote Sensing and Environmental Intelligence Lab (ReSEIL) at CSU, he integrated multi-source remote sensing, high-throughput plant phenotyping, genetic methods, biological modeling, and AI to explore how plant chemical responses at the species level affect health, growth, and functioning amid disturbances like drought and invasives. His scholarly impact is evidenced by over 2,279 citations on Google Scholar. Key publications encompass 'Recent advances of hyperspectral imaging technology and applications in agriculture' (Remote Sensing, 2020; 1,372 citations), 'Object-based flood mapping and affected rice field estimation with Landsat 8 OLI and MODIS data' (Remote Sensing, 2015; 133 citations), 'Plant drought impact detection using ultra-high spatial resolution hyperspectral images and machine learning' (International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 2021; 94 citations), 'From spectra to plant functional traits: Transferable multi-trait models from heterogeneous and sparse data' (Remote Sensing of Environment, 2023; 76 citations), and 'Imaging spectroscopy reveals topographic variability effects on grassland functional traits and drought responses' (Ecology, 2025). Major awards include a USDA-NIFA grant of $500,000 in 2024 for an advanced high-throughput plant phenotyping system. He contributed editorially as Associate Editor for Agrosystems, Geosciences & Environment (appointed October 2024) and Austral Ecology (2022-2024).