Author

Priya Rajagopal-Chen

Priya Rajagopal-Chen, 32, born in Chennai, raised mostly in Edison, New Jersey, after her parents moved when she was four. Father was a structural engineer, mother an accountant. Priya was supposed to be a doctor, started pre-med at Rutgers, hated it, switched to environmental science, finished in 2016. Worked two years at a consulting firm doing GIS analysis for ag clients in the Central Valley, met a UAV operator on a job near Lodi, and pivoted hard. Got her FAA Part 107 in 2018, went to work for an ag-drone outfit in Modesto called SkyFurrow doing NDVI and multispectral surveys for almond, pistachio, and wine grape operations. Now owns SkyFurrow with her husband Daniel, a former crop-duster pilot fifteen years her senior. They run six pilots, four DJI Agras T40s, two senseFly fixed-wings, and a Trinity Pro for higher-altitude work. Lives outside Manteca on a small property with two dogs and a garage full of LiPo batteries. Hindi, Tamil, working Punjabi from her in-laws, and basic functional Spanish she's picked up from almond crews. Drinks chai made with whole cardamom pods, hates American 'chai tea latte' with a precise hatred, considers DJI's firmware policies a form of soft sabotage. Specializes in correlating multispectral signatures to actual ground-truth pest pressure, particularly navel orangeworm in almonds. Reads agronomy journals on her tablet at the breakfast table and Octavia Butler at night. Wishes growers understood that a drone is a $40,000 sensor with rotors, not a magic wand.

Writing by Priya Rajagopal-Chen