Rongyun is a postdoctoral research scholar in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology under Dr. Debjani Sihi. Her current research focuses on methane modeling in upland forests, with particular emphasis on the role of microbial communities in carbon cycle and future carbon projections. She has a broad interest in ecosystems monitoring and modeling, artificial intelligence, and sustainable agriculture and food systems. Rongyun holds a bachelor’s degree in Remote Sensing, a master’s degree in Geographic Information Systems and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, which she completed in 2023. Her doctoral studies were jointly supported by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (under Dr. Mingzhou Jin) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (under Dr. Jiafu Mao), where she did doctoral research in wildfire and carbon sciences with statistical, machine learning, and process-based models. She started her postdoctoral training in agricultural ecosystems in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering in the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville under Dr. Benjamin Runkle. She developed a microsite-scale, depth-dependent methane model for rice paddies that highlights the co-modulation of substrate availability and water management.