Robert Lacourse

Biography:

Robert Lacourse is CEO for TwinSpruce Customs in Canandaigua NY, where he uses his vast aviation experience to help UAS operators with FAA Rules and regulations. Robert was one of the first FAA inspectors to validate/ approve the initial UAS Agriculture operators. He recently retired from the FAA as an Aviation Safety Inspector, and was the FAA’s Drone Focal Point for Western NY. He volunteers his time as a FAA Drone Professional. His UAS experience started in 2016 just as UAS’s were making their mark in the national airspace. Robert’s aviation experience started over 48 years ago. He received his FAA student pilots license for Gliders before serving 27 years in the United States Airforce where he maintained several types of fighter aircraft. He earned his Aviation safety Management degree, with a minor in aircraft accident investigation in from the Community College of the USAF

Dr. Jian Jin

Dr. Jian Jin is an associate professor from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. 

Biography:

Dr. Jian Jin is an associate professor from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. Dr. Jin received his Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering from Iowa State University in 2009. He earned his M.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Denmark Technical University in 2005 and his B.S. degree in Computer Science from Zhejiang University in 2003.
Prior to joining Purdue, Dr. Jin conducted research at DuPont Pioneer (now Corteva), where he was most recently a Technology Leader working on crop phenotyping and led a team for the company’s new controlled environment phenotyping systems for automated plant screening. Dr. Jin’s major research interest at Purdue is to develop the next generation plant sensor technologies, along with machine vision, image processing, and data modeling. He also has interests in other areas of agricultural sensing, broadly defined, and in automation and robotics in agriculture. Dr. Jin is the preseident and founder of LeafSpec LLC, which aims to deliver the highest quality of plant sensing technologies to plant scientists and crop growers

Dr. Steven Thomson

National Program Leader (NPL) with the USDA National Institute Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

Biography:

Dr. Steven J. Thomson is National Program Leader (NPL) with the USDA National Institute Food and Agriculture (NIFA). He engages Universities, other federal agencies, and industry to provide national leadership in Capacity and Competitive Grant programs. The Research, Education, and Outreach programs he leads focus on engineering processes to improve systems relevant to agriculture. These include Engineering for Agricultural Production Systems and NSF-collaborative programs such as the National Robotics Initiative, Cyber-Physical Systems, and AI Institutes.  Dr. Thomson received his Ph. D from the University of Florida in the Ag. And Bio. Engineering Dept. and has background in aerial application of crop protection materials, irrigation management, water balance and crop modeling, decision support systems for agricultural management, sensing systems and electronics, precision agriculture, applied statistics, and agricultural safety. Dr. Thomson was incoming Associate Professor at Virginia Tech in the College of Engineering and had received the Alpha Epsilon Award for his Research/Extension program and Outstanding Faculty Award in the Biological Systems Engineering (BSE) Department. He was a Lead Scientist with the USDA ARS before joining USDA-NIFA in early 2016. He has authored or co-authored over 100 publications, two book chapters, and several Extension publications and software.