Kelly Thorp
Research Agricultural Engineer at USDA-ARS
Temple, Texas, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolKelly Thorp is a Research Agricultural Engineer with over 9 years of experience at USDA-ARS applying informational technologies to improve water and nutrient management for crops. He combines expertise in hyperspectral remote sensing across visible to SWIR bands with cropping system simulation (RZWQM, DSSAT/CSM) to bridge field measurements and predictive models. His recent work focuses on data assimilation, parameter estimation, and inverse modeling to fuse remote sensing into crop simulations for precision agriculture, irrigation and nitrogen management, and plant phenomics. Notably, he has contributed back-end improvements to the widely used DSSAT CSM — enhancing PET calculations, weather-file handling, and model robustness. Based in Temple, Texas, he leverages a Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering to translate advanced sensing and modeling methods into practical tools for crop and bioenergy systems.
9 years of coding experience
5 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Agricultural Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Agricultural Engineering at Iowa State UniversityUniversity of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignAssociate of Science (AS), Engineering Science, Associate of Science (AS), Engineering Science at Parkland College
Github Skills (7)
fortran10
data-structures4
algorithm4
algorithms4
data-structure4
c-language3
cprogramming-language3
Programming languages (5)
Github contributions (5)
DSSAT/dssat-csm-os
Aug 2020 - Jul 2022
DSSAT Cropping System Model
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 review, 23 commits, 17 PRs in 1 year 11 months
Contributions summary:Kelly primarily focused on modifying and updating the DSSAT Cropping System Model's potential evapotranspiration (PET) calculations, specifically integrating the ASCE standardized reference evapotranspiration equation and dual crop coefficient method. They made substantial changes to the `SPAM/PET.for` file, adding support for different weather file formats and fixing a compilation issue. These updates included adjusting code to handle missing weather data and ensuring the model's robustness. The user's work contributes to improving the accuracy and flexibility of the DSSAT model in agricultural research.
crop-simulation-modelscrop-modelagriculture-researchdssatcropping
kthorp/GeoSim
Jan 2018 - Mar 2024
A model-independent, open-source geospatial tool for managing point-based environmental model simulations at multiple spatial locations
Contributions:2 PRs, 16 pushes, 5 branches in 6 years 2 months
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