Position Title
Graduate Student
- Biological Systems Engineering Graduate Program
Omar holds a B.S. in Engineering Sciences from California State University, Bakersfield, where he graduated in 2017. His experiences at CSU Bakersfield, alongside his work on a large farm in Central California and time in a factory as a wastewater engineer led him to working towards agricultural sustainability, particularly with respect to water. Upon joining UC Davis as a Ph.D. student in biological systems engineering, he started doing work with indoor agriculture and an emerging technology called agrivoltaics where solar panels are placed over agricultural crops. He learned a certain amount of shading for plants can be beneficial as it will have little to no impact on growth, while improving plant temperatures and water use. His current work involves studying the nuance and developing models and simulations to investigate optimal agrivoltaic designs to improve agricultural sustainability.
Research Interest: Sustainable Agriculture, Agrivoltaics, Integration of Renewable Energy into Agriculture, Water Resource Sustainability, Science Communication
Fun Fact: I play guitar and piano in my free time.
- Agricultural and Natural Resources Engineering