Jianing Fang

PhD Candidate, Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University
Research focus: hybrid machine learning and terrestrial biosphere modeling

Education

PhD, Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University
2021 to Present
Advisor: Pierre Gentine
MS conferred February 2023

BS, Johns Hopkins University
2017 to 2021
Majors in Computer Science, Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Applied Mathematics and Statistics
GPA 3.96

Work Experience

Student Researcher, Google Research
Cambridge, MA
2025 to Present
Developing AI-based land components within NeuralGCM for weather forecasting and climate projection.

Conservation Research Intern, Nyanpo Yutse Conservation Association
Qinghai, China
2018 to 2021
Conducted fieldwork and GIS analyses on climate change impacts and wetland degradation on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.

Grants and Awards

NASA FINESST Award
2023 to 2026
Doctoral research grant supporting development of differentiable hybrid ML land biosphere models.

Best Paper Award, 10th International Congress of Sensor Networks
2021
Wireless sensor network for in situ soil moisture monitoring.

Provost Undergraduate Research Award, Johns Hopkins University
2019
Summer research on wetland degradation on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.

Research Experience

Differentiable Land Model for Ecological Function Controls
2022 to Present
Built fully differentiable land models integrating mechanistic carbon cycle processes with machine learning to reveal global controls on carbon, water, and energy fluxes.

Long-term Solar-induced Fluorescence Reconstruction
2022
Designed a deep learning algorithm combining OCO-2 SIF retrievals with multisensor satellite records to produce a continuous global photosynthesis proxy from 1982 to 2023.

Diurnal Hysteresis of Photosynthesis from OCO-3 SIF
2021
Analyzed flux tower GPP and OCO-3 SIF to quantify hysteresis during drought and developed an early-warning vegetation stress index.

Wireless Sensor Network for Soil Moisture Monitoring
2020 to 2021
Led deployment and software development for automated soil moisture and temperature monitoring.

Climate Change and Alpine Wetlands on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau
2019 to 2020
Quantified multi-decadal changes in wetland extent, vegetation structure, and hydrological state.

Publications

• Fang, J., Bowman, K., Zhao, W., Lian, X., Gentine, P. (2025). Differentiable Land Model Reveals Global Environmental Controls on Latent Ecological Functions. Under Review.
• Fang, J., Lian, X., Ryu, Y., Jeong, S., Jiang, C., Gentine, P. (2025). A long-term reconstruction of a global photosynthesis proxy over 1982 to 2023. Scientific Data.
• Worden, M., Bilir, T., Bloom, A., Fang, J., Klinek, L., Konings, A.,…, Zhu, S. (2025). Combining Observations and Models: A Review of the CARDAMOM Framework for Data-Constrained Terrestrial Ecosystem Modeling. Global Change Biology.
• Zhao, W., Fang, J., Yang, T., Lian, X., Winkler, A., Sun, F., Gentine, P. (2025). Observation-constrained physical snow water equivalent simulations using a physics-guided machine learning approach. Under Review.
• Lian, X., Ji, J., Fang, J., Ryu, Y., Harrison, S., Jeong, S., Helin, Z., Han, Jisu, Novick, K., …, Gentine, P. (2025). Leaf temperature and its departure from ambient air temperature. Under Review.
• Zhang, S., Zhao, W., Yan, C., Song, X., Jiang, H., Fang, J., Ciais, P., Xuan, N., Gentine, P., Davis, S., Liu, Z., Qiu, G. (2025). A near-real time daily European Power Consumption and Carbon Intensity Dataset (ECON-PowerCI). Scientific Data.
• Fang, J., Gentine, P. (2024). Exploring Optimal Complexity for Water Stress Representation in Terrestrial Carbon Models: A Hybrid Machine Learning Model Approach. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.
• Lian, X., Peñuelas, J., Ryu, Y., Piao, S., Keenan, T., Fang, J., …, Gentine, P. (2024). Diminishing carryover benefits of earlier spring vegetation growth. Nature Ecology and Evolution.
• Jeong, S., Ryu Y., Gentine, P., Lian, X., Fang, J., …, Prentice, I. (2024). Persistent global greening over the last four decades using novel long-term vegetation index data with enhanced temporal consistency. Remote Sensing of Environment.
• Zhang, Y., Fang, J., Smith, W., Wang, X., Gentine, P., Scott, R., …, Zhou, S. (2023). Satellite solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence tracks physiological drought stress during the 2020 Southwest US drought. Global Change Biology.
• Fang, J. & Zaitchik, B. (2021). Challenges in reconciling satellite-based and locally reported estimates of wetland change. Remote Sensing.
• Fang, J., Hu, C., Smaoui, N., Carlson, D., Gupchup, J., Musaloiu-E., R., Liang, C-J.M., Gnawali, O., Chang, M., Budavari, T., Terzis, A., Szlavecz, K., Szalay, A. (2021). Wireless Sensor Network for in-situ Soil Moisture Monitoring. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Sensor Networks.

Selected Presentations

• HyrdoML 24, 2024
  Optimal complexity for water stress representation in hybrid biosphere models. Invited talk.

• CARDAMOM Workshop, Caltech, 2024
  Differentiable approaches to terrestrial biosphere modeling.

• FLEX Fluorescence Workshop, 2023
  Long-term reconstruction of solar-induced fluorescence.

Teaching Experience

Guest Lecturer, Climate Dynamics and Climate Change (NYU)
2025
Delivered lectures on global biogeochemical cycles and climate dynamics.

Course Assistant, Automata and Computation Theory (Johns Hopkins University)
2020
Supported instruction, grading, and review sessions.

Research Mentor, Wilbart Conservation Education Group
2020 to 2021
Developed conservation course materials and mentored high school students in field survey and scientific communication.

Biology and Chemistry Tutor, EasyPath Education
2020 to 2021
Tutored over 30 students in IB biology and chemistry.

Invited Research Visits

Ecological Sensing AI Lab, Seoul National University
Dec 2024 to Jan 2025
Differentiable modeling of canopy energy balance and leaf temperature.

Model-Data Integration Group, Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Oct to Dec 2023
Parameter spatialization for terrestrial biosphere models.

Professional Service

Conference Convener, AGU 2025

• Deciphering Land Carbon Sink
• High-Resolution Modeling of Atmosphere-Hydrology-Ecology Interactions

Peer Review
Reviewer for Remote Sensing of Environment, Global Change Biology, JGR Biogeosciences, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, Ecological Informatics, Biogeosciences, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Geophysical Research Letters.