Alison Thieme
How I work with Harvest
Alison’s work focuses on using remote sensing to evaluate the performance of winter cover crops in the
United States Mid-Atlantic Region. She collaborates with the Maryland Department of Agriculture,
Delaware Conservation Partnership, United States Department of Agriculture – Agricultural Research
Service, and United States Geological Survey to collect field samples and relates them to Landsat and
Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. When combined with state-provided GIS data, she can evaluate cover crop
performance under different management practices and incentive structures.
Biography
Alison Thieme is a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland in the Department of Geographical
Sciences working with Chris Justice and W. Dean Hively. Alison’s research combines remote sensing and
agronomy to promote sustainable agriculture and inform winter cover crop policy. She holds a M.S. in
Geographical Information Science for Development and Environment from Clark University, an M.B.A.
from Quantic School of Business and Technology, and a B.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from
University of California Los Angeles. Separate and tangential to her research, she is a Science Diver with
the Space Systems Laboratory at University of Maryland where she tests satellite robotics.
