Zijun Yang
Assistant Professor
Hello! I am an assistant professor at the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of North Carolina Wilmington.
My research interest lies in the intersection of remote sensing, machine learning, agriculture, and environmental sustainability. I aim to better understand ecosystem dynamics under the changing climate through an integration of multi-scale remote sensing (e.g., satellite, drone, and near-surface platforms), field data collection, and GeoAI modeling.
My ongoing work spans from near real-time crop characterization (e.g., crop type, crop progress, and health condition), remote identification of vegetation phenology, spatiotemporal fusion of multi-scale remote sensing images, to modeling climate change impacts on agricultural, forest, and coastal ecosystems.
Education
Ph.D., Geography, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2024)
M.S., Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2018)
B.S., Geographic Information Science, Sun Yat-sen University (2012)
Specialization in Teaching
University of North Carolina Wilmington
• GGY 101 – Modern World Geography, Instructor, Spring 2025
• GGY 522 – Remote Sensing in Environmental Analysis, Instructor, Spring 2025
• GGY 429/529 – Aerial Drone Applications in Geosciences, Instructor, Fall 2024
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• GEOG 379 – Intro to GIS Systems, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Spring 2019
• GEOG 105 – Digital Earth, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Fall 2018
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• EAS 541 – Remote Sensing of Environment, Graduate Student Instructor, Spring 2018
Research Interests
• Time Series Remote Sensing
• Geospatial Artificial Intelligence
• Vegetation Phenology
• Agriculture and Food Security
• Unmanned Aircraft Systems