Debjani Sihi

Bio

Debjani Sihi joined the CALS AI cluster (plant science position) in the fall of 2024. She is affiliated with the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology and Crop & Soil Sciences. Prior to joining NC State, she was a faculty member at Emory University. Her doctoral research was completed at the University of Florida, and she held postdoctoral appointments at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences (Appalachian Laboratory) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Her research program focuses on the plant-soil-microbe-atmosphere continuum. Sihi is a biogeochemist by training, and her work involves integrating field and laboratory data with machine learning (AI) and process-based (mechanistic) models. Her specialization lies in soil (and ecosystem) carbon (and nutrient) cycle processes and greenhouse gas emissions from managed (agricultural) and natural (forest, wetland, grassland) ecosystems. As part of the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative, she is interested in building an interdisciplinary program that leverages cutting-edge technologies (e.g., sensors, imaging, molecular technologies) to address grand challenges of our era (climate change, food security, and environmental sustainability) using multi-scale modeling and big data analytics approaches. Research projects in Sihi Lab are funded by federal agencies (USDA, NSF, DOE) and industry (Valent Biosciences) partners.

Publications

• A New Coupled Biogeochemical Modeling Approach Provides Accurate Predictions of Methane and Carbon Dioxide Fluxes Across Diverse Tidal Wetlands , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-BIOGEOSCIENCES (2024)
• Biochar applications and enzyme activity, carbon dioxide emission, and carbon sequestration in a calcareous soil , Journal of Plant Nutrition (2024)
• Reconciling Top-Down and Bottom-Up Estimates of Ecosystem Respiration in a Mature Eucalypt Forest , JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-BIOGEOSCIENCES (2024)
• Upscaling Soil Organic Carbon Measurements at the Continental Scale Using Multivariate Clustering Analysis and Machine Learning , Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2024)
• A Continental‐Scale Estimate of Soil Organic Carbon Change at NEON Sites and Their Environmental and Edaphic Controls , Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2023)
• Consider the Anoxic Microsite: Acknowledging and Appreciating Spatiotemporal Redox Heterogeneity in Soils and Sediments , ACS Earth and Space Chemistry (2023)
• Standardized Data to Improve Understanding and Modeling of Soil Nitrogen at Continental Scale , Earth's Future (2023)
• Upscaling soil organic carbon measurements at the continental scale using multivariate clustering analysis and machine learning , (2023)
• Challenges of using microbial explicit models for evaluating organic matter decomposition in predominantly organic soils  , (2021)
• Concurrent Measurements of Soil and Ecosystem Respiration in a Mature Eucalypt Woodland: Advantages, Lessons, and Questions , Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2021)