Aparna Phalke is a PhD candidate in the Nelson Institute Environment and Resource Program. Phalke’s research focuses on developing methods to better understand how humans use the land, particularly for agricultural activities, using remote sensing, geospatial tools, machine learning, and econometric models. Phalke’s dissertation research focuses on investigating the various ways in which remotely sensed observations can improve crop area estimates from individual fields to entire countries, and relate these estimates to government-led agricultural support programs in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Phalke has developed innovative and automated land use classification algorithms and tools using big data satellite remote sensing funded by NASA. Before joining the PhD program, Phalke received a master’s degree in remote sensing and GIS from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand, and immediately worked for a United Nations project on water poverty analysis in the Asia-Pacific region using satellite remote sensing.
Growing up in rural India, Phalke has experienced the problems of small-holder farmers and therefore intends to develop research that benefits small-holder farming communities around the world.