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Indian-origin professor receives Community Uplift Award
She was recognized for leveraging data science to drive equitable and sustainable agricultural solutions.
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Bhavana P - Sat, 17, May 2025
- 13:03 EDT
- 0
Harmandeep Sharma, Ph.D., center, research assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, holds her trophy for winning the SAS Community Upward Award. Sharma is with Alisa Marin left, customer success manager at SAS, and Jennifer Bell, SAS director of educational partnerships, at the SAS Innovate Conference on May 7 in Orlando, Florida. / North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University
SAS, a global leader in analytics and artificial intelligence, presented its 2025 Community Uplift Award to Indian-origin professor Harmandeep Sharma.
The award honors individuals who have made a meaningful community impact using SAS’s advanced data analytics tools. It was presented during the SAS Innovate Conference last week in Orlando, Florida.
Also read: University of Manitoba names Kevin Sharma emerging leader
Sharma, a research assistant professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Design of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, was selected from among global SAS users for her groundbreaking work helping small-scale farmers adopt precision agriculture technologies.
By analyzing real-time data from drones and in-ground sensors, Sharma develops predictive models that optimize irrigation, fertilization, and overall crop health, directly improving farm productivity and sustainability.
“This initiative has been transformative — not just for me, but for our College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, our faculty and especially our students. SAS has a clear commitment to ensuring our students are equipped with the skills needed to lead in data analytics and artificial intelligence within the agricultural sector,” said Sharma.
In addition to enhancing crop production, Sharma’s team uses SAS tools to generate high-quality microdata that reveal gender and racial disparities among small-scale farmers—while ensuring data privacy. These insights inform policy discussions and empower marginalized farming communities.
John Gottula, SAS’s principal advisor for AI and biostatistics, praised Sharma’s leadership, stating, “She is bringing her deep subject-matter expertise in the horticulture and crop science to bear, while also building this newer skill set of artificial intelligence, and synthesizing both of those things together for her research, and then, she’s taking others on that learning journey with her. That’s truly a measure of good leadership.”
As a 2024 SAS HBCU+ Fellow, Sharma emphasized the value of industry-academic collaboration. “Our students are working with a wide range of data,” she said. “If companies have internship opportunities, we have talented students ready to contribute.”
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