Dr. Abhilash Chandel is an assistant professor and Extension specialist at Virginia Tech. He is an affiliate faculty of Biological Systems Engineering and Center for Advanced Innovation in Agriculture (CAIA). He obtained his Ph.D. from Washington State University, and his Bachelor of Technology and Master of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. Dr. Chandel currently leads the user-inspired precision agriculture and data management program, in which he extensively utilizes the principles of precision and digital technologies to solve problems of production agriculture for field, specialty, and forestry crops. His major focus areas include, but are not, limited to, spectral remote sensing (handheld, ground, aerial, and satellite-based); biotic and abiotic stress mitigation and management using multimodal data-fusion, artificial intelligence applications; smartphone and edge computing systems; and open-data frameworks for user-driven production management. He works in close association with Extension agents, crop consultants, companies, and growers of peanut, corn, soybean, cotton, fava bean, potato, broccoli, sweet corn, wheat, apples, grapevines, and American chestnuts, among others.
