Offer Rozenstein Ph.D.

Dr. Offer Rozenstein is a senior researcher at the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) Volcani Institute. He holds three degrees from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev: a B.A. in Geography and Environmental Development, and Psychology, an M.A. in Desert Studies, and a Ph.D. in Remote Sensing. His professional journey includes a postdoctoral position at McGill University and a sabbatical at the University of Turin, Italy, where he focused on remote and proximal sensing applied to agriculture and data-driven decision support.

Dr. Rozenstein’s research primarily revolves around developing innovative geospatial analysis techniques to enhance agricultural productivity and sustainability. His notable achievements include pioneering the Split-Window-Algorithm for Land Surface Temperature estimation from Landsat-8 TIRS data, and developing thermal spectroscopy methods for sorting black plastic polymers in the recycling industry. His work in remote sensing-based estimations of crop water consumption has led to significant advancements in precision irrigation practices. Recently, he led the development and implementation, at the Ministry of Agriculture, of a near real-time remote sensing crop mapping system based on cloud and AI technologies. The system generates on-demand information on crop distribution across the entire country for 42 major crop types, covering the period from 2018 onward, and is expected to provide open-access information to the public.

Throughout his career, Dr. Rozenstein has been recognized with several awards, including the Tim Casgrain Water Resource Research Award, the Mokadi Award for outstanding doctoral thesis from the Israeli Society of Soil Sciences, the Yehiel Admoni Award for exceptional research in combating desertification, and the Mashav Award for a Promising Young Agricultural Researcher.

Dr. Rozenstein is actively involved in international scientific collaborations and initiatives. He has organized and participated in numerous international workshops and conferences, such as the UK-Israel workshops on data-driven agricultural decision making and currently leads a workgroup in PANGEOS Cost Action focusing on digital twin models for precision agriculture. Additionally, he has contributed to the SENSECO COST Action, focusing on optical synergies for spatiotemporal sensing of scalable ecophysiological traits. Furthermore, Dr. Rozenstein leads a national use case as part of the European Partnership Agriculture of Data (AgData). His extensive contributions to international scientific committees highlight his commitment to advancing global agricultural research and innovation.