Department of Agriculture, Forests, Nature and Energy
University of Tuscia

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Prof. Dr. Raffaele Casa, Associate Professor of Agronomy at the Department of Agriculture Forestry Nature and Energy (DAFNE), University of Tuscia, Viterbo, ITALY Education University Degree in Agricultural Sciences at Viterbo University, 110 out of 110 cum laude. April 1990. Experimental graduation dissertation. Doctorate degree (PhD) at the University of Dundee (Scotland, UK) awarded in 2003. Thesis title: “Multiangular remote sensing of crop canopy structure for plant stress monitoring” for research on applications of Remote Sensing to Plant Ecophysiology and Agronomy. Professional and research experience January 2014: achievement of the National Scientific Habilitation to the position of Full Professor in the domain 07/B1 (Agronomy and herbaceous and horticultural cropping systems). March 2005 to present: Associate Professor of at the Department of Agriculture, Forests, Nature and Energy (DAFNE) of the University of Tuscia, Viterbo (Italy). 1995 to March 2005: researcher at the University of Tuscia, Viterbo. June 2012: recipient of a fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh for a 4-week research visit to the Environmental Modelling Group at the School of Biological Sciences of the University of Aberdeen, lead by Professor Pete Smith. August 2008 to August 2009: recipient of a EU Intra European Fellowship spent at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) of Avignon (France). Responsible, at the Unit EMMAH (Environnement Méditerranéen & Modélisation des Agro-Hydro systèmes) of research project “FUNctional-structural plant models for improved estimation of crop and soil status based on REmote Sensing Observations (Acronym FUNRESO)”, under the supervision of Dr. Fred Baret. August 2001 to January 2002: research worker under contract at the University of Dundee (Scotland, UK) for the EU project “Evaluation of alternative techniques for determination of water budget components in water-limited, heterogeneous land-use systems” (acron. WATERUSE). July 2000: recipient of an Italian National Research Council (CNR) Short-term Mobility scholarship spent at the University of Dundee. February 1999 to February 2000: recipient of an EU Marie Curie fellowship spent at the School of Life Sciences, Division of Environmental and Applied Biology of the University of Dundee (Scotland). Work on a research project entitled "Water and nitrogen stress monitoring of herbaceous crops using hyperspectral multidirectional remote sensing". Supervisor: Prof. H.G. Jones. March 1995: COMETT scholarship of  4 months spent at the Institute of Ecology and Resource Management (IERM) of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr. Casa joined the research activities of the Crop Physiology Group supervised by Dr. Graham Russell. July 1990 to September 1995: employed as a full time research worker at Consorzio Agrital Ricerche in Maccarese (Rome, Italy). Research interests Current research interests include the study of quantitative remote sensing methods and application in the context of precision agriculture; hyperspectral and  multiangular approaches for the detection of plant canopy stress in arable  crops;  the effects of environmental factors on arable crops, with particular interest for evapotranspiration, water and radiation use efficiency, crop canopy structure and crop growth modeling; agrometeorology and use of micrometeorological techniques. List of current research projects: 2013-2015: Italian Ministry of Research (MiPAAF) project "Precision agriculture for weed management", involvement as project coordinator (PI). 2012-2016: European Space Agency (ESA) Dragon3 Project (Europe-China Scientific Cooperation) "Farmland Drought Monitoring and Prediction Based On Multi-source Remote Sensing Data", involvement as co-PI. 2012-2015: European Space Agency (ESA) project "Regional scale assessment for the reduction of cropland greenhouse gas balance uncertainties: case study for Central Italy", Category-1 PI. 2011-2015: Italian Space Agency (ASI) project “Development of algorithms for agriculture and land  monitoring for the PRISMA mission” (SAP4PRISMA), (UNITUS coordinator).