Alfonso Torres-Rua is a Peruvian native, passionate about remote sensing for agriculture and water management. His studies have afforded him the opportunity to refine this interest over several years. Alfonso's area of expertise is the use of scientific satellites and drones for agriculture & precision farming applications as well as machine learning & data mining for monitoring and forecasting agricultural parameters. 

Alfonso is the Chief Scientist in the USU AggieAir UAV program, one of the most advanced programs in the nation, developing civil applications using UAVs. He is currently an Assistant Professor, a mentor to students from Iran & Palestine, and collaborates with researchers in Brazil, Spain, and California.  

In a representative project, "Monitoring Vineyard Water Use and Vine Water Status with Land Surface Temperature for Improved and Sustainable Water Management from Field to Regional Scales" in collaboration with ARS-USDA, E&J Gallow Wineries, and other US universities, he is working to vertically integrate drones with commercial and scientific satellites to estimate spatial evapotranspiration across the state of California.