معرفی
Dr. Renfu Lu is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biosystems & Agricultural Engineering at Michigan State University and a Research Agricultural Engineer with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) since 1994. He has served as Research Leader for the USDA-ARS unit at MSU since 2007 and location coordinator since 2015. Previously, he held positions as research assistant professor and research associate at the University of Arkansas (1990-1994).
Education:
- B.S. in Engineering, Zhejiang Agricultural University (now Zhejiang University)
- M.S. in Agricultural Engineering, Cornell University
- Ph.D. in Agricultural Engineering, Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Lu's research focuses on automation and sensing technologies for harvest and postharvest quality assessment of horticultural crops. His pioneering work includes hyperspectral imaging for food safety inspection, light scattering techniques, spatially resolved spectroscopy, and structured light imaging. He leads developments in machine-vision based in-field apple sorting systems and co-leads a robotic harvesting initiative addressing agricultural labor shortages.
Honors and Awards:
- ASABE Rain Bird Engineering Concept Awards (2023, 2019)
- Multiple ASABE/ASAE paper awards (1997-2019)
- ASABE Fellow (2013)
- Federal Laboratory Consortium Technology Transfer Award (2009)
- Penn State Outstanding Alumni Award (2011)
As adjunct faculty since 1999, Dr. Lu mentors graduate students in Biosystems Engineering. He co-leads an MSU research team developing robotic harvesting technology and has transferred multiple technologies to industry, including patent-protected sorting systems.
