Senior Plant Imaging Scientist

Description

Upward Farms designs and operates complete ecosystems of plants and fish in vertical farms, supplying these organic products to local grocers. We are currently expanding, opening a new cutting-edge, fully automated facility in Brooklyn. More and larger farms are in the works. Our mission is to heal the broken food system and reconnect eaters with flavorful and nutritious local food.

Plant imaging at Upward Farms serves three aims: crop scouting, trait characterization, and quality control. Crop scouting is focused on detecting plant disease, stress, and pests. Trait characterization is focused on identifying phenotypes, biomass, and forecasted yield. Quality control is focused on creating crop quality checkpoints after germination and prior to harvest.

We are seeking an experienced imaging scientist who provides vision and technical leadership on research and engineering questions spanning the entire plant imaging pipeline from camera hardware and automation to image analysis and phenotyping. The ideal candidate will own all aspects of plant imaging at Upward Farms, from image processing to biomass estimation to phenotyping. In this role, you will join the Agriculture and Manufacturing R&D (AMRD) team and collaborate with colleagues from Software & Electronics and Engineering. As a member of AMRD, you will pursue science and technology-enabled solutions for ecological production systems so that Upward Farms can advance crop, ecology, and manufacturing outcomes.

Success

Your objective is to conceptualize, specify, develop, and build systems for imaging and image analysis that advance our team’s work to harness the power of whole ecosystems for food production. Success in this role will be measured through the delivery of research-enabled solutions in the areas of  crop scouting, trait characterization, and quality control that improve commercial outcomes (yield, consistency, cost, customer satisfaction, etc.). 

You are encouraged to build bridges, do what it takes to solve the right problems, and co-create our design and research culture. This is a brand new role on our team and comes with the opportunity and flexibility to shape it to make it your own.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of crop scouting systems for detecting plant disease, plant stress, plant pests, and plant temperature; trait characterization for identifying phenotypes, biomass, and forecasted yield; and quality control imaging systems at quality control checkpoints.
• Identify and manage vendors and partners across imaging hardware, automation, and analysis.
• Lead the development of disease detection algorithms and yield estimation algorithms.
• Design and oversee experiments in our R&D and production systems to advance imaging capabilities.
• Contribute to the development of crop models.
• Contribute to the development or sourcing of aquaculture imaging systems.
• Communicate with internal and external stakeholders, adapting communications to diverse audiences and representing Upward Farms effectively and professionally.
• Remain current in relevant fields and bring new research ideas into the research pipeline.
• Contribute to hands on troubleshooting of imaging systems