Rate My Professor Debjani Sihi

Debjani Sihi serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at North Carolina State University, with an affiliation in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences. She joined the faculty in fall 2024 as part of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' AI cluster initiative and the N.C. Plant Sciences Initiative. Previously, she was a faculty member in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Emory University. Sihi obtained her Ph.D. in Soil and Water Science from the University of Florida, focusing her dissertation on soil organic matter dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions in subtropical wetlands. She also held postdoctoral positions at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences' Appalachian Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where she worked on biogeochemical modeling and soil greenhouse gas emissions. Earlier, she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Agriculture and Environmental Sciences in India.

Sihi's research expertise lies in biogeochemistry, particularly the plant-soil-microbe-atmosphere continuum. She integrates empirical data from field and laboratory studies with machine learning algorithms and process-based models to investigate soil and ecosystem carbon and nutrient cycles, as well as greenhouse gas emissions from managed agricultural systems and natural ecosystems such as forests, wetlands, and grasslands. Her interdisciplinary program employs advanced technologies including sensors, imaging, and molecular tools to tackle challenges in climate change mitigation, food security, and environmental sustainability. Research in the Sihi Lab is supported by grants from the USDA, NSF, DOE, and industry partner Valent Biosciences. Notable publications include "Lowland Tropical Forests Remain a Methane Sink Under Warming and Long-Term Hurricane Disturbance Recovery" (2026), "Decoding the hidden mechanisms of soil carbon cycling in response to climate change in a substrate-limited forested ecosystem" (2025), "Management alternatives for climate-smart agriculture at two long-term agricultural research sites in the United States: A model ensemble case study" (2025), "A New Coupled Biogeochemical Modeling Approach Provides Accurate Predictions of Methane and Carbon Dioxide Fluxes Across Diverse Tidal Wetlands" (2024), and "Reconciling Top-Down and Bottom-Up Estimates of Ecosystem Respiration in a Mature Eucalypt Forest" (2024).