Sierra Young is an Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the Utah Water Research Laboratory at Utah State University. Broadly speaking, her research focuses on the use and development of electronics, computer vision/AI, robotics, and automation for sensing and sense-making in environmental systems. Through developing and deploying these technologies, work conducted in the DAISy Lab aims to improve our ability to monitor and understand complex environmental processes.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Vaishali Swaminathan
Vaishali Swaminathan is a postdoctoral researcher in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department. Her research focuses on combining remote sensing, computer vision, and data science to model agricultural and ecological systems. She received her Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from Texas A&M University in 2024.
Email: vaishali [dot] swaminathan [at] usu [dot] edu
Graduate Students
Safran Khan
PhD Candidate
Safran Khan is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Utah State University. His research focuses on developing novel approaches that integrate deep-learning algorithms into civil engineering practices. Specifically, he is working on using deep learning for hydrological feature extraction.
Email: a02428105 [at] usu [dot] edu
Abdulganiyu Jimoh
PhD Student
Abdulganiyu Jimoh is a Ph.D. student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Utah State University. He contributes to NSF-funded research on innovative methods for monitoring dust-exposed vegetation using hyperspectral data. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Collective Intelligence, with expertise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithm development, and data-driven problem solving.
Email: a02483178 [at] usu [dot] edu
Undergraduate Researchers
Eliza Haderlie
Eliza is an undergraduate student in the Computer Science department. She helps develop computer vision applications and web apps for imaging hydroponic systems.
Megan Schaumann
Megan is an undergraduate student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. She is assisting with greenhouse studies using hyperspectral imaging to study the effects of dust deposition on vegetation.
Htoo Poe Sar
Htoo Poe is an undergraduate student majoring in Computer Science with a minor in mathematics. She is developing drone software in collaboration with USU AggieAir for measuring meteorological data.
Alumni
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Yuzhen Lu, Postdoc (NCSU), 2020, Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University.
Graduate Students
Dylan McPeake, MS, 2025 (USU), PhD student at the University of Kentucky
Razin Bin Issa, MS, 2025 (USU), PhD student at the University of Nebraska
Mitchell Bailey, MS, 2024 (USU), PhD student at Iowa State University
Hemanth Dakshinamurthy, PhD, 2024 (USU), Research Scientist, South Carolina State University.
Piyush Pandey, PhD, 2022 (NCSU), ORISE postdoctoral fellow at USDA-ARS.
Andrew Hillman, MS, 2021 (NCSU), PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Anh Nguyen, MS, 2021 (NCSU), PhD student at North Carolina State University.
Russell Smith, MS, 2021 (NCSU).
Undergraduate Researchers
Autumn Kirkham, Biological Engineering, Summer 2025
Arian Bencomo, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Summer 2025
Hannah Fluckiger, Mathematics (USU), 2024
Hannah Smith, Civil and Environmental Engineering (USU), Spring-Summer 2024
Kai Francom, Civil and Environmental Engineering (USU), Summer 2024
Aspen Sorenson, Chemistry (USU), Summer 2022-2023
Isaac Orrill, Mechanical Engineering (USU), Summer 2022-2023
Spencer Corkins, Biological and Agricultural Engineering (NCSU), Spring 2020-2021.
Ian Dershem, Computer Science (UNC Chapel Hill), Spring-Summer 2021.
Evan Smith, Biological & Agricultural Engineering (NCSU), Summer 2019-2020.
John Corriher Biological & Agricultural Engineering (NCSU), Summer 2019.
Will Daniels, Computer Engineering (UNC Charlotte), Summer 2019.
Nicole Knox, Computer Engineering (NCSU), Fall 2019.
High School Students
Arianne Fels, Summer 2024.