Jean Bouchat
Dr.
internal research fellow
Biography
After graduating with a master’s degree in mathematical engineering from the Louvain School of Engineering in 2019, I transitioned to Land Remote Sensing and joined the Geomatics Research Laboratory of the Earth and Life Institute, UCLouvain, to pursue my PhD. My research there, co-funded by ESA and the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), focused on the application of SAR remote sensing to agricultural monitoring. To this end, I carried out several field campaigns, both in Belgium and abroad, as well as research stays in Italy and China. In 2024, right after completing my PhD, I joined the Science Hub as an Internal Research Fellow.
Research
My research currently focuses on the development of synergistic methods for retrieving EO-based optical vegetation descriptors—such as the leaf area index (LAI), the fraction of absorbed photosynthetic active radiation (fAPAR), and the canopy chlorophyll content (CCC)—in near real-time from multi-frequency SAR and optical data. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the monitoring frequency of operational vegetation monitoring systems, such as early warning systems for crop stress.