Biography
I am a Levenick Endowed Professor in agroecosystem sensing and modeling at UIUC, a Blue-Waters Professor in Supercomputing at UIUC-NCSA, a University Scholar of the University of Illinois System, the Founding Director of Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) at UIUC, and also the Chief Scientist of the NASA Acres Consortium - representing NASA's flagship program in advancing US agriculture research. My major affiliations at UIUC are with the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (NRES), Siebel School of Computing and Data Sciences (CS), College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES), Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE), and National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). My research group uses advanced process models, satellite sensing technology, fieldwork, and artificial intelligence to address how climate and human practices affect crop productivity, water resource, ecosystem functioning, and environmental sustainability. We have keen interests in applying our knowledge and skills in solving real-life problems, such as large-scale crop monitoring and forecasting, quantification of environmental impacts of farming/grazing (e.g. greenhouse gas emission), agricultural policy design, water management and sustainability, and global food security.
More information can be found at: http://faculty.nres.illinois.edu/~kaiyuguan/.
Recruitment: We are recruiting Research Scientists, Postdocs, & PhD Students on Ecosystem Modeling and Remote Sensing. See details at our website. For Prospective Students: I recruit PhDs and Masters students from the following programs@UIUC:
PhDs: NRES, PEEC, Informatics
Masters&PhDs: Computer Science
Education
- PhD, Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, 2013
- M.A., Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, 2010
- B.S. Geography, Geoinformatics, Nanjing University, 2008
Additional Campus Affiliations
Stuart L. and Nancy J. Levenick Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
Professor, Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences
Office of Research Fellow, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
Professor, Siebel School of Computing and Data Science
Director, Agroecology Sustainability Center, Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment
Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Professor, Center for Digital Agriculture, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Affiliate, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Recent Publications
Derner, J. D., Gonzalo Irisarri, J., Raynor, E. J., Ritten, J. P., Lents, C. A., Guan, K., Peng, B., Ye, L., Thoma, G., Porensky, L. M., & Augustine, D. J. (2026). From data to decisions: the potential of real-time precision technologies to enhance adaptive grazing management for livestock ranchers. African Journal of Range and Forage Science, 43(1), 46-54. https://doi.org/10.2989/10220119.2025.2585814
Furuta, D. C. R., Yang, J., Liu, L., Jin, Z., Guan, K., Peng, B., & Li, J. (2026). Design and Test of a Lower-Cost Water-Quality Sensor for Nitrate. ACS ES and T Water, 6(2), 709-719. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.5c00837
Guan, K., Peng, J., & Luo, Y. (2026). A System And Method To Fuse Multiple Sources Of Optical Data To Generate A High-resolution, Frequent And Cloud-/gap-free Surface Reflectance Product. (U.S. Patent No. 12555208).
Jia, M., Peng, B., Guan, K., Lawrence, D. M., DeLucia, E. H., Lombardozzi, D. L., Sturchio, M. A., Kannenberg, S. A., Knapp, A. K., Du, X., Time, A., Bernacchi, C. J., Lee, D. K., Miljkovic, N., Branham, B., & Khanna, M. (2026). Assessing the Impact of Agrivoltaics on Water, Energy, and Carbon Cycles Using the Community Land Model Version 5. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 18(2), Article e2025MS005092. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005092
Jia, M., Peng, B., Guan, K., Lawrence, D. M., DeLucia, E. H., Knapp, A. K., Barron-Gafford, G. A., Khanna, M., Lombardozzi, D. L., Sturchio, M. A., Kannenberg, S. A., Zhao, L., McCall, J., Tang, J., Bernacchi, C. J., Mwebaze, P., Majeed, F., Lee, D., & Time, A. (2026). Climate-driven divergence in biophysical and economic impacts of agrivoltaics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 123(10), Article e2514380123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2514380123