Wartini Ng

Wartini Ng is a Research Fellow at the School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney. Her expertise lies in soil sensing, data analytics, and machine learning applications in environmental science. She holds a BS (cum laude) in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Riverside, and a PhD in Soil Science from the University of Sydney. Her doctoral research focused on integrating novel data analytics and proximal sensing to analyze soil conditions, particularly using machine learning techniques like deep learning to enhance soil property predictions.

Her research interests include soil security, spectral transfer functions for global soil property prediction, and the development of frameworks for soil policy and carbon sequestration. She is a member of the Sydney Institute of Agriculture and contributes to interdisciplinary projects such as spatial evaluation of soil carbon storage potential across Australia and optimizing fertiliser recommendations using mid-infrared spectroscopy.

Ng has secured grants including the 2024 'An integrated schema for soil carbon stock estimation and crediting' funded by the National Soil Carbon Innovation Challenge. Her work emphasizes bridging technological advancements (e.g., spectroscopy) with environmental policy to address soil degradation and resource management challenges. She collaborates extensively with international teams, leveraging global datasets to improve soil assessment methodologies.

Her lab and fieldwork focus on innovative solutions for soil monitoring, including the redesign of the Tea Bag Index methodology for citizen science in Australia and developing numerical soil classification systems. These efforts aim to democratize soil science while advancing sustainable land management practices.