Briefly
Opeyemi (Yemi) Zubair is a Geographer in the Research Support Branch of the Information Support Division at the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS). His work focuses mainly on collaborating with and supporting all types of economic research with geospatial analysis and cartographic design.
Background
Yemi joined ERS as a geographer in 2021. Prior, Yemi served as a tenure- track assistant professor of Geography & GIS with Tarleton State University for 5 years. During this time, Yemi also served as the coordinator of the Geography and GIS program and chair of his department. While at Tarleton State University, Yemi introduced all types of Geography and GIS related courses, supervised many undergraduate research projects, started the GIS certificate program, and introduced the undergraduate GIS degree at the University’s Fort Worth Campus. Before his relocation to the United States and subsequently joining the University after his graduate studies, Yemi was a Principal Scientist in the Strategic Space Applications’ department of the Nigeria’s Space Agency for several years. At the Agency, he participated in and coordinated several types of satellite-based projects that were national in scope.
Education
Ph.D. in Geosciences and Social Science Consortium, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2016;
M.Sc. in Geographic Information Systems, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 2007;
B.Sc. in Geography, University of Ilorin, Nigeria, 2003.
Professional Affiliations
American Association of Geographers (AAG)
The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS)
Selected Publications
Zubair, O., & Akinyede, J. O. (2013). Harnessing Nigeria’s Investment in Satellite Technology for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. Geographic Information Systems, 1515–1524. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2038-4.ch091
Zubair, O. A., & Ji, W. (2015). Assessing the Impact of Land Cover Classification Methods on the Accuracy of Urban Land Change Prediction. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 41(3), 170–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2015.1065706
Zubair, O., Ji, W., & Weilert, T. (2017). Modeling the Impact of Urban Landscape Change on Urban Wetlands Using Similarity Weighted Instance-Based Machine Learning and Markov Model. Sustainability, 9(12), 2223. https://doi.org/10.3390/su9122223
Weilert, T., Ji, W., & Zubair, O. (2018). Assessing the Impacts of Streamside Ordinance Protection on the Spatial and Temporal Variability in Urban Riparian Vegetation. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 7(7), 282. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi7070282
Zubair, O., Ji, W., & Festus, O. (2019). Urban Expansion and the Loss of Prairie and Agricultural Lands: A Satellite Remote-Sensing-Based Analysis at a Sub-Watershed Scale. Sustainability, 11(17), 4673. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11174673
Zubair, O. A. (2020). Investigating Urban Growth and the Dynamics of Urban Land Cover Change Using Remote Sensing Data and Landscape Metrics. Papers in Applied Geography, 7(1), 67–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/23754931.2020.1817136
O. Festus, O., Ji, W., & Zubair, O. (2020). Characterizing the Landscape Structure of Urban Wetlands Using Terrain and Landscape Indices. Land, 9(1), 29. https://doi.org/10.3390/land9010029