Dr. Hannah Kerner, Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University.
Research & Innovation
The Taylor Geospatial Engine selected Dr. Hannah Kerner as an academic seed grant awardee for the Field Boundaries for Agriculture initiative. Dr. Kerner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence at Arizona State University. Prior to joining the faculty at ASU, Dr. Kerner was an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. She completed her Ph.D. at Arizona State University on machine learning methods for planetary exploration missions. She holds a B.S. in computer science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Kerner has also worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Langley Research Center, as well as the commercial remote sensing company Planet, Inc.
Taylor Geospatial Engine selected Dr. Kerner as a grant awardee due to her exceptional expertise and pioneering innovations in her field. Her proven track record and dedication to applying her research for societal benefit make her an invaluable partner.
Innovation Pioneer
Dr. Kerner is pioneering new machine learning techniques to leverage remote sensing data in addressing global challenges such as food insecurity and climate change. Her work is significantly enhancing the use of computer vision models for identifying terrestrial features from satellite imagery.
Proven Track Record
The impact of Dr. Kerner’s research was recognized in Forbes 30 Under 30 and the International Research Centre On Artificial Intelligence’s Top 10 projects solving problems related to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals with AI. She leads the development and deployment of AI and machine learning tools for the NASA Acres and NASA Harvest consortia, which apply satellite observations to tackle pressing agricultural and food security challenges in the U.S. and worldwide. She has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed research articles. Her work has been sponsored by NASA, NSF, Google, and other funders.
Commitment to Impactful Solutions
Dr. Kerner’s work often intersects multiple disciplines, which leads to novel applications and expands the commercial reach of academic research. Her projects, which advance agricultural practices, improve disaster response, and strengthen food security, demonstrate a commitment to creating technologies that have a significant societal impact. This alignment ensures that results will be both innovative and meaningful, increasing the potential marketability.
Dr. Kerner & TGE’s Innovation Bridge
Dr. Kerner and her team at ASU were selected as a recipient of a grant from the TGE under the Innovation Bridge program to complement and accelerate their work to delineate field boundaries from satellite imagery.
“The TGE Innovation Bridge project provides critical support to our research by seeding the development of a comprehensive benchmark dataset that we can use to validate and enhance machine learning models for precise agricultural field boundary delineation. This dataset supports other projects in my research group that require field boundary datasets (e.g., NASA Harvest) and accelerates research more broadly in the ML and remote sensing communities. The TGE project fosters multi-sectoral collaborations that accelerate the transition of our machine learning advancements from academic research to practical, commercial applications. This helps facilitate the broader adoption of our ML technologies to promote sustainable agricultural practices and drive industry innovation.
Learn More About Dr. Hannah Kerner
Dr. Kerner’s commitment to using her work to uplift communities and increase access to computer science, machine learning, and open scientific endeavors is exemplified through her talks and published work. We encourage you to explore her research (samples included below) or visit her on Github.
– Watch Dr Kerner’s Ask SME closeup as the Artificial Intelligence Lead from the NASA eClips series.
– Learn about the challenges for developing AI/ML applications for real world problems in Dr Kerner’s article in the MIT Technology Review.
– Read Dr Kerner’s two position papers published at the 41st International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML) in Vienna, Austria July 21 – 27, 2024.
– Collaborate with Dr Kerner and her ASU team as part of the Taylor Geospatial Engine Innovation Bridge program by attending the bi-weekly community call or join the Google Group.
– Explore Dr Kerner’s full body of published academic papers and scholarship on Google Scholar.
Additionally, there were considerations about commercial use of the dataset that I had not thought about (and wouldn’t have thought about) without inputs from [the Innovation Bridge team]. For example, we made the decision to publish the dataset in a way that would allow different constructions of the underlying data based on the user’s license preference (e.g. commercial or non-commercial), whereas my instincts before this project were to make everything non-commercial or sharealike.” Hannah Kerner, July 2024.
In essence, Dr. Kerner’s visionary research, interdisciplinary expertise, and eye on impact make her an ideal choice for TGE as we build bridges to transform academic research into commercial capabilities.