Rate My Professor Kaiyu Guan

Kaiyu Guan serves as a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned a B.S. in Geography, Geoinformatics from Nanjing University in 2008, an M.A. in Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2010, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Princeton University in 2013. Following his doctorate, he completed postdoctoral research at Stanford University from 2013 to 2015 and worked as a Quantitative Researcher at The Climate Corporation from 2015 to 2016. He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Assistant Professor in 2016, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2021, and to Full Professor in 2024. He also holds appointments as an affiliated professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Sciences and affiliations with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment.

He is the Levenick Endowed Professor in agroecosystem sensing and modeling, Blue Waters Professor in Supercomputing at UIUC-NCSA, University Scholar of the University of Illinois System, Founding Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center, and Chief Scientist of the NASA Acres Consortium. His research employs advanced process models, satellite sensing technology, fieldwork, and artificial intelligence to examine how climate and human practices influence crop productivity, water resources, ecosystem functioning, and environmental sustainability, with applications in crop monitoring and forecasting, greenhouse gas quantification, agricultural policy, water management, and global food security. He has received the AGU James B. Macelwane Medal and AGU Fellowship in 2023, NSF CAREER Award in 2019, recognition on the Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researchers list in multiple years including 2024, the Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists Finalist designation, and the 2025 agInnovation Research Innovation Award of Excellence, among other honors. He has delivered distinguished lectures such as the American Society of Agronomy Plenary E.T. and Vam York Distinguished Lectureship in 2024.