Rui Cheng

Assistant Professor @ University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

About Me

Hi, my name’s Rui (pronounced as “RAE”). I am an assistant professor at the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. My research interest is evaluating global vegetation-climate feedbacks, such as carbon, water, and energy fluxes between land and atmosphere, using a fusion of remote sensing techniques and process-based modeling, specifically in regions with limited direct measurements, including the Arctic, tropics, and mountainous regions.

I am most skilled in: Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF), peatland hydrology, land-atmosphere flux sensing, and process-based inverse modeling

I am maintaining a customizable gridding code for satellite soundings, e.g., gridded TROPOMI SIF (instantaneous, day-length corrected, and relative SIF). Feel free to contact me if you are interested in getting gridded products.

Appointment

Assistant Professor

August, 2023 - present

University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

PI @ Environmental Sensing & Modeling Lab

Affiliated with:

Minnesota Robotics Institute

Minnesota Supercomputing Institute

UMN Data Science Initiative

UMN Institute on the Environment

Postdoc

September, 2022 - August, 2023

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Education

California Institute of Technology

Ph.D. 2023

Major: Environmental Science and Engineering

Minor: Electrical Engineering

Thesis Advisory Committee: Christian Frankenberg (Advisor), Tapio Schneider (Chair), Paul O. Wennberg, Anthony Bloom

Thesis: Remotely evaluating the seasonality of gross primary production at high latitudes

Ameriflux

2017 Summer

Flux Course

Lehigh University

M.S. 2017

Major: Earth and Environmental Science

Advisor: Benjamin Felzer

Thesis: The associated effects of temperature and soil moisture on forest carbon fluxes in the contiguous US

Sun Yat-sen University

B.S. 2015

Major: Atmospheric Science

Advisor: Song Yang

Thesis: Characteristics of hot days in China with Central-Pacific El Niño

Projects & Publications

Remotely Estimating Photosynthetic Seasonality in the Arctic

Opportunities and challenges in evaluating SIF-GPP relationship using SIF and machine learning-based GPP products

  • Cheng, R. (2024), Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF): Towards a Better Understanding of Vegetation Dynamics and Carbon Uptake in Arctic-Boreal Ecosystems. Current Climate Change Reports. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-024-00194-8

  • Cheng, R., Magney, T.S., Orcutt, E.L., Pierrat, Z., Köhler, P., Bowling, D.R., Bret-Harte, M.S., Euskirchen, E.S., Jung, M., Kobayashi, H., Rocha, A.V., Sonnentag, O., Walther, S., Zona, D., Frankenberg, C. (2022), Evaluating photosynthetic activity across Arctic-Boreal land cover types using solar-induced fluorescence. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac9dae

  • Byrne, B., Liu, J., Yi, Y., Chatterjee, A., Basu, S., Cheng, R., Doughty, R., Chevallier, F., Bowman, K.W., Parazoo, N. C., Crisp, D., Li, X., Xiao, J., Sitch, S., Guenet, B., Deng, F., Johnson, M. S., Philip, S., Mcguire, P. C., and Miller, C. E. (2022), Multi-year observations reveal a larger than expected autumn respiration signal across northeast Eurasia. Biogeosciences. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-4779-2022

Radiative Transfer in Mountainous Regions

Topographic dependence of radiation and vegetation dynamics.

  • Kunik, L., Raczka, B., Smith, K.R., Bowling, D., Frankenberg, C., Köhler, P., Cheng, R., Goulden, M.L., Jung, M., & Lin, J.C. (2023), Satellite-based solar-induced fluorescence tracks seasonal and elevational patterns of photosynthesis in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Environmental Research Letters. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad07b4

  • Cheng, R., Köhler, P., & Frankenberg, C. (2022), Impacts of Topography and Radiation on Temporal Upscaling of Instantaneous Solar-Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. [published version by request, accepted preprint]

Photosynthetic Phenology in an Evergreen Needleleaf Forest

Multi-scale studies on the seasonality of SIF, hyperspectral reflectance, canopy color, and GPP from tropics to the Arctic. These papers feature a canopy-level telescope, PhotoSpec (a.k.a. BEYONCE).

  • Pierrat, Z.A., Magney, T.S., Cheng, R., Maguire A., Wong C., Nehemy M., Rao M.P., Nelson S.E., Williams A.F., Grosvenor J.A.H., Smith K.R., Reblin J.S., Stutz J., Richardson A., Logan B.A., Bowling D.R., (2024) The biological basis for using optical signals to track evergreen needleleaf photosynthesis. BioScience, biad116, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad116

  • Cheng, R., Magney, T.S., Dutta, D., Bowling, D.R., Logan, B.A., Burns, S.P., Blanken, P.D., Grossmann, K., Lopez, S., Richardson, A.D. and Stutz, J., (2020). Decomposing reflectance spectra to track gross primary production in a subalpine evergreen forest. Biogeosciences, 17(18), pp.4523-4544. https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-4523-2020

  • Magney, T.S., Bowling, D.R., Logan, B.A., Grossmann, K., Stutz, J., Blanken, P.D., Burns, S.P., Cheng, R., Garcia, M.A., Kӧhler, P. and Lopez, S., (2019). Mechanistic evidence for tracking the seasonality of photosynthesis with solar-induced fluorescence. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(24), pp.11640-11645. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1900278116

  • Seyednasrollah, B., Bowling, D.R., Cheng, R., Logan, B.A., Magney, T.S., Frankenberg, C., Yang, J.C., Young, A.M., Hufkens, K., Arain, M.A. and Black, T.A., (2020). Seasonal variation in the canopy color of temperate evergreen conifer forests. New Phytologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.17046

Interannaul Variability of Precipitation in SoCal

ENSO and PDO explain 20% of the interannual variability of total precipitation and precipitation frequency in SoCal.

  • Cheng, R., Novak, L., & Schneider, T., 2021. Predicting the interannual variability of California’s total annual precipitation. Geophysical Research Letters, 48, e2020GL091465. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL091465

Droughts and Floods in Ethnographic Reports

  • Felzer, B.S., Ember, C.R., Cheng, R. and Jiang, M., 2020. The Relationships of Extreme Precipitation and Temperature Events with Ethnographic Reports of Droughts and Floods in Nonindustrial Societies. Weather, Climate, and Society, 12(1), pp.135-148. https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-19-0045.1

Indoor Navigation

  • Zhang, D., Qiu, G., Gao, Y., Fang, X., Cheng, R., Chang, A. and Chan, C.Y., 2014, October. Crowdsourcing based radio map anomalous event detection system for calibration-on-demand. In 2014 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN) (pp. 220-229). IEEE.

Teaching

Springs 2024-

BBE 4753/5753 - Air Quality and Pollution Control Engineering

Instructor, University of Minnesoa

Falls 2023-

BBE 2003 - Computer Applications in Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering

Instructor, University of Minnesoa

2023 Spring

1.S991: Sensing and Intelligent Systems

Instructor, MIT

2023 Winter (IAP)

TREX: Vegetation and Remote Sensing on the Island of Hawai’i

TA for Prof. David Des Marais, MIT

2022 Fall

(Q)GIS Tutorial for Drone and Satellite Images

Instructor, MIT

2021 Spring

GE 157c: Remote Sensing for Environmental and Geological Applications

TA for Prof. Bethany Elmann, Caltech

2019 Winter

ESE 103: Earth’s Biogeochemical Cycles

TA for Prof. Christian Frankenberg, Caltech

2018 Winter

ESE 131a: Physical Oceanography I

TA for Prof. Jörn Callies, Caltech

2018 Fall

ESE 101: Earth’s Atmosphere

TA for Prof. Tapio Schneider, Caltech

2019 - 2022

Data and Coding Instructor at the Carpentries, Caltech

2016

Teacher Development Program (I+II), Lehigh University

Professional Service

Review

Environmental Research Letters; Remote Sensing of Environment; Agricultural and Forest Meteorology; Biogeosciences; ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Nexus; Environmental Research Communications; European Journal of Remote Sensing; Geocarto International; Science of the Total Environment; Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment;

Guest Editor

Environmental Research - Ecology

Grant Review/Panel

NASA, EPA, DOE

Leadership

Ameriflux Year of Remote Sensing Organizing Committee, present

NEON Advisory Groups (Foliar Sampling), present

AGU Biogeoscience DEI Committee & Graduate Travel Fund Committee, present

Caltech Resident Associate, 2019-2022

Outreach & DEI

Science Outreach at Kona Science Coffee and Kealakehe High School, Jan 2023

Science Outreach at 29 Palms, AGU Voices for Science Program, 2021-2022

Caltech Women in Geoscience Club & Caltech Women Mentor Women, 2017-2022

Mentor & Judge in SoCal Science Olympiad (high school), 2018

Science Outreach at the Washington STEAM Multilingual Academy, Pasadena, CA, 2018

Science Tutor for underrepresented students at Donegan Elementary School, Bethlehem, PA, 2016-2017

Science Tutor for students with disabilities, China, 2012-2014

On Media

  • June 17, 2024 I helped designing and guest lectured the MIT 1.104 Sensing and Intellgent Systems. The student projects were showcased and awarded for their innovation.


  • May 9, 2024 I was interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio Climate Cast with Paul Huttner


A Little More About Me

Alongside my research interests, my other interests and hobbies are:

  • Science Outreach - DEI advocacy on women in STEM
  • Roadtrips
  • Swimming
  • Yoga
  • Jogging
  • Look at this cool image I took along the Dalton Highway in Brooks Range, Alaska.

Alaska