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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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).
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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
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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
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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
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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.