Remote Sensing Research Group

Dr. Zhijie Wang is a post-doc fellowship of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Lethbridge in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He was born and educated in China, and received his PhD degree in Agronomy from China Agricultural University (2004), MSc in Agronomy from Henan Agricultural University (2001), and BSc degree in Agronomy from Henan Agricultural University (1993). He worked for Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) from December 2004 to November 2005 and carried out a research entitled “Crop monitoring methods using remote sensing and GIS” under the auspices of JIRCAS Visiting Research Fellowship Program. A model for winter wheat grain yield estimation was developed with Landsat5 TM and Landsat7 ETM+ images.

As a post-doc fellowship managed by Natural Sciences Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), he served for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada 3 years, from January 2006 to March 2009. During this time, his research has been focused on the diagnosis of crop N status with chlorophyll meter, Dualex, Yara N Sensor and GreekSeeker. The strategies for wheat and corn N status assessment have been developed. He has been working on the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) research using Imaging Spectrometer at the University of Lethbridge since April 2009.

Dr. Wang was awarded the Scholarship of Henan agricultural University at level 1 in 1992 and level 2 in 1991, the China National Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishery FENGSHOU Award, level 2 twice and level 3 twice, in 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1998, and DADI Scholarship, sponsored by a Chinese-American group, in 2000, respectively.

I grew up in a small city on the Inner Mongolia grassland, a Chinese equivalent of Lethbridge, and then spent teenage years trying to adjust to the life in the huge city of Beijing. I never got to know Beijing very well, because like every high school students in China, school work is almost everything in my teenage life.

Left the big capital city, in 2000, I went to one of the “four big hot stoves of China” (more like a big wet sauna room), to study in Wuhan University and got a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Engineering in four years.

Hated memorizing all the chemical reactions, I decided to come to Canada and try something different. While being “adopted” by the incredibly generous Willms’ family, I studied with Dr. Wei Xu in the Geography Department of University of Lethbridge, and luckily got into the field of Remote Sensing and GIS − something I enjoy doing. In January 2007, I earned my Master of Science degree after two years of study.

After graduation, I worked a few short contracts with AAFC, Alberta Public Land and Environment Canada in projects concerning rangeland management and wildlife conservation.

In August 2007, Dr. Anne Smith introduced me to Dr. Philippe Teillet, who later hired me as his research associate. I have been working in the University of Lethbridge Remote Sensing Team for almost two years now. It is great to work with a group of people who all love what they do.