Alireza Pourreza

E-mail |
Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
227 Frazier Rogers Hall, PO Box 110570 Gainesville, FL 32611
352-392-1864 ext. 143

Summery

Alireza is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Florida (UF) with Dr. Wonsuk Lee. He completed his graduate studies at UF and obtained his PhD degree in Agricultural and Biological Engineering under the advisement of Dr. Lee in the fall of 2014 (in three years and one semester). He also received an interdisciplinary certificate in GIS and remote sensing. He holds a master’s degree in Mechanics of Agricultural Machinery and a bachelor’s degree in Farm Machinery Engineering.
His current research efforts are on precision agriculture, sensor and machine design for sorting and grading operations, computer vision, robotics and automation, quality assessment, GIS, remote sensing, and big data. His doctoral dissertation was focused on an interdisciplinary research in citrus diseases detection using computer vision, spectroscopy, multispectral/hyperspectral imaging, and machine learning. Alireza developed two real-time vision based sensors for citrus Huanglongbing (HLB) disease detection for laboratory and field experiments. Moreover, he has investigated the spectral signatures of citrus black spot (CBS) disease symptoms, which was recently discovered in Florida.
Alireza has published his research in the Transactions of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers (ASABE), Computers and Electronics in Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering journals. He is also preparing another manuscript to be submitted to the Plant Disease Journal. Additionally, Alireza has been publishing in several conferences proceedings such as ASABE Annual Meetings, International Conference on Precision Agriculture, and Florida Section of Horticulture Society Annual Meeting. He was granted the Best Paper Award in 2013 ASABE Annual Meeting. Additionally, He submitted a patent application for the sensors I developed during my PhD study.
Alireza has experience writing research grant proposals to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Citrus Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), and Florida Specialty Crop Block Grant Program. He had the opportunity to take a graduate level course in Grant Writing (ABE 6933) to improve his writing skills, learn about various funding agencies and learn how to write competitive grant proposals. Additionally, He took the College of Engineering’s Future Faculty Development course (EMA 6936) and also a course about Communication in Academia (ABE 6933), which provided him with valuable information about academic careers.

Research Interest

Alireza’s research interests are in the areas of precision agriculture, sensor design, sorting and grading operations, quality control and assessment, robotic controls and automations, computer vision, GIS, remote sensing, and big data. His research goals are to answer fundamental questions using intelligent systems theory in high impact applications, such as multi-agent robotic systems with respect to sensing, estimation and control.

Past Research

Alireza conducted his first research project on developing a vision based egg sorting machine during his bachelor’s program. He published the results of my bachelor project in the Journal of Agricultural Engineering Research (Vol. 8, No. 3, 2007). After graduating with his Bachelor’s degree in 2004, he started to cooperate with BinaPardaz , a prominent company which deals with intelligent systems and machine vision solutions. During his employment at BinaPardaz he designed and developed an automatic trash detection system in a Barberry production line using machine vision, an automatic milking information gathering system based on radio frequency identification (RFID) for dairy industry, and an automatic variable rate irrigation system for municipality of Mashhad (The second largest city in Iran). During his first Master’s program (2007-2011), he was primarily working on novel image processing techniques such as cutting-edge morphological and textural analyses. The results of his Master’s thesis were published in the journal of Computers and Electronics in Agriculture (Vol. 83, 2012) and cited by several researchers (17 times to date).
His PhD dissertation focused on citrus Huanglongbing (HLB) disease detection using machine vision methods. HLB is a very destructive citrus disease with no effective treatment that has caused a huge loss in the $9-billion citrus industry of Florida. It has been reported at some locations in California and Texas as well. Starch accumulates on infected citrus leaves and creates blotchy mottles in an asymmetrical pattern which may be confused with the deficiency of certain nutrients such as zinc or magnesium. The birefringence property of starch was used to make the distinction between the accumulated starch and nutrient deficiency symptoms. Birefringence is a property of some materials (including polymer materials) which enables them to bend or refract the light into two planes. Polymer materials such as starch and sugar with high internal organization and comparatively round shape usually have a crystalline structure which makes them birefringent. Two vision based sensors were developed which were highly sensitive to polarization rotation of reflected light at a specific waveband. The results of this study were published in three peer-reviewed journals and several conferences proceedings. The HLB detection sensor has also attracted positive media attention.

Current Research

Alireza’s current research is focused on detecting a recently discovered citrus disease called citrus black spot (CBS) disease. At the first step of the CBS identification project, a visible and near infrared spectroscopy was conducted to define the spectral characteristics of several CBS symptoms and to determine the best distinguishing wavebands. At the second step, a vision based sensor is being developed according to the band selection results achieved at the first step of the project. The sensor will be used to detect the infected citrus fruits in the field and also in the postharvest process.

Research Collaborations

Alireza has been an active participant on several collaborative projects such as working with a group of researchers at UF in an aerial hyperspectral imaging experiment, and collaborations with Prof. John Schueller (Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering), Prof. Ed Etxeberria (Citrus Research and Education Center), and Dr. Mark Ritenour (Postharvest Laboratory, Indian River Research and Education Center).