Stephen P. Klassen

Stephen Klassen is IRRI's Senior Scientist for Digital Agriculture and Precision Farming. He works with an interdisciplinary team of remote sensing experts, soil scientists, agronomists, social scientists, breeders, and policy analysts to understand adoption processes, technology targeting, and the enabling environment to support sustainable rice farming under climate change. He leads IRRI’s drone research program with a focus on science-led agricultural development, scale, sustainability and underlying processes. Steve joined IRRI in 2009 as an Engineer working on the design and implementation of high throughput phenotyping and crop monitoring systems and as the Science Coordinator for research infrastructure development.  Prior to IRRI, he was a Biologist at the US Fish and Wildlife Service and a Senior Research Associate, Crop Physiology at Utah State University. He holds a MSc degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Utah State University, USA, and a BSc degree in Biology with a minor in Chemistry from the University of Utah.