About

Amir Malvandi is associated with the Center for Digital Agriculture at the University of Illinois. The center focuses on advancing digital and smart agriculture through research, education, and industry collaboration. The center's initiatives include developing AI-driven tools such as CropWizard, a generative AI decision-support service for agricultural professionals, and supporting projects like AI AgriBench to build trust in AI agronomy through transparent benchmarking. The Center for Digital Agriculture offers interdisciplinary programs, including a fully online Master’s Degree in Engineering with a concentration in Digital Agriculture, aimed at cultivating expertise in digital agriculture technologies. The center also hosts global seminar series in collaboration with institutions like National Taiwan University, emphasizing international perspectives on digital and smart agriculture. Key contributions include pioneering research in AI applications for agriculture, developing accessible datasets like PigLife for livestock industry optimization, and exploring generative AI solutions such as CropGPT to assist farmers with pest, disease, and crop management inquiries. The center actively engages in building the future of digital agriculture through student programs, industry events, and collaborative research efforts.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Composite material
• Acoustics
• Environmental science
• Pulp and paper industry
• Physics
• Biological system
• Mathematics
• Food science
• Chemistry
• Optics
• Chromatography
• Engineering
• Statistics
• Organic chemistry

Selected publications

• Non-destructive measurement and real-time monitoring of apple hardness during ultrasonic contact drying via portable NIR spectroscopy and machine learning

  Infrared Physics & Technology · 2022 · 70 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Materials science
  • Acoustics
  • Environmental science
  DOI

• Application of NIR spectroscopy and multivariate analysis for Non-destructive evaluation of apple moisture content during ultrasonic drying

  Spectrochimica Acta Part A Molecular and Biomolecular Spectroscopy · 2021 · 84 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Biological system
  • Mathematics
  DOI

• Drying characteristics and quality attributes of apple slices dried by a non-thermal ultrasonic contact drying method

  Ultrasonics Sonochemistry · 2021 · 143 citations

  • Materials science
  • Chemistry
  • Pulp and paper industry

  Drying is one of the most prevalent methods to reduce water activity and preserve foods. However, it is also the most energy-intensive food processing unit operation. Although a number of drying methods have been proposed and tested for the purpose of achieving a time- and energy-efficient drying process, almost all current drying methods still rely on thermal energy to remove moisture from the product. In this study, a novel use of power ultrasound was explored for drying of apple slices without the application of heat. The non-thermal ultrasound contact drying (US-CD) was performed in the presence of an air stream (26-40 °C) flowing over product surface to remove mist or vapor produced by the ultrasound treatment. The effects of the non-thermal US-CD, hot-air drying (HAD), and freeze drying (FD) on the changes in rehydration ratio, pH, titratable acidity, water activity, color, glass transition temperature, texture, antioxidant capacity, total phenols, and microstructures of the samples were evaluated. The moisture content of the apple slices reached below 5% (w.b.) after 75-80 min of US-CD, which was about 45% less than that of the HAD method. The antioxidant capacity and total phenol contents of the US-CD samples were significantly higher than that of the AD samples. The non-thermal ultrasonic contact drying is a promising method which has the potential to significantly reduce drying time and improve product quality.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• D.D. Ganji

  Babol Noshirvani University of Technology

  65 shared

• S.A. Moshizi

  Macquarie University

  60 shared

• Faraz Hedayati

  Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

  25 shared

• Mahdi Zamāni

  24 shared

• Saeed Heysiattalab

  Qaemshahr Islamic Azad University

  11 shared

• Hao Feng

  North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University

  10 shared

• Amirmahdi Ghasemi

  Worcester Polytechnic Institute

  9 shared

• S.J. Hosseini

  University of Tehran

  8 shared

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• Jeffrey S. Mooreh-130
• Shuming Nieh-128