Dr. Kaiyu Guan is the Founder and Executive Chairman of HabiTerre and a globally-recognized leader in agricultural innovation. He serves as the Levenick Endowed Professor and Founding Director of the Agroecosystem Sustainability Center (ASC) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At ASC, he leads the integration of satellite sensing, artificial intelligence, and supercomputing to revolutionize global food security and environmental sustainability. Dr. Guan is also the Chief Scientist for NASA Acres, NASA’s flagship program for U.S. agriculture. Dr. Guan serves as a board member for agricultural research for the U.S. National Academies. His work has pioneered scalable frameworks of modeling and remote sensing for quantifying field-level carbon outcomes, and developed novel solutions for real-time monitoring of crop growth, nutrient needs, and climate-risk adaptation. Recognized among the world’s most influential scientists, Dr. Guan is a perennial member of the global Highly Cited Researchers list, the winner of the Foodshot Global Groundbreaking Prize, AGU James Macelwane Medal, and was recently honored as the national winner of the 2025 agInnovation Research Innovation Award. He holds a PhD from Princeton University and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University.

Jamie Ridgely is a seasoned leader with a proven background in developing, managing and scaling innovative product strategies. Prior to joining HabiTerre, Jamie held several key positions at agriculture and technology companies, where she successfully led program, product, and operational teams, oversaw creation and scaling of a major soil carbon program, developed a scalable framework for conservation planning across the ag value chain, and executed the fruitful exit of a small ag tech company. In addition to her experience across many aspects of business, Jamie actively farms and firsthand experiences the implications of climate change and conservation efforts at field level.

David brings to HabiTerre his skills in corporate development, new market assessment, and business planning. He has led or supported raising over $50 million in equity investments and non-dilutive funding for early stage companies in agriculture and food. He honed his investment and investor relations skills as a sell-side research analyst at boutique investment bank Think Equity and Prudential Financial’s institutional equity business after eleven years of healthcare industry experience including Searle Pharmaceuticals (now Pfizer) and Baxter Healthcare. Having grown up on his family’s Midwestern grain farm, David received his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Yizhi has overseen HabiTerre's technical vision and strategic roadmap since 2020, driving the company's growth through cross-functional collaboration. Most notably, he spearheaded the development of HabiTerre's flagship carbon solution. With a decade of experience at the intersection of agriculture, remote sensing, and AI, Yizhi specializes in transforming complex technical challenges into scalable, production-ready systems. He holds an M.S. in Computer Science from UIUC and dual B.S. degrees in CS and Mathematics from Penn State.