Begin With Collaboration  JOE MARI MAJA

Learning computer engineering from scratch took a special kind of work ethic that has served Maja well throughout his career.

The college lab where he took his first computer programming classes was open for three, three-hour blocks each Saturday. When students cycled out for a new lab, Maja would simply go to the back of the line, and if there was an empty computer, he’d sit down for another three-hour class.

Maja aced his computer fundamentals coursework that semester. Learning to write programs and focusing on microprocessor-based design also introduced him to influential faculty, and those connections helped set the trajectory of his career.

The fundamentals of coding he learned as a first-year college student in the Philippines still inform his work on complex, electronic boards he now creates for cutting-edge precision agriculture equipment. His journey also gives him a unique understanding of the challenge of acquiring new skills. It’s something that serves him well when he’s inviting farmers to embrace, adopt and employ new technologies for their work.

Travel the world

Over the next decade, Maja’s work transported him from the Philippines to Japan to Lorient, France, back to the Philippines and then finally to the U.S. for his postdoctoral work.

A simple algorithm Maja created while he was in Japan allowed robots to navigate using a single sensing modality, a significant improvement from navigational technology in use at the time that required multiple ultrasonic sensors, which slowed processing speeds. Every opportunity that crossed Maja’s path became a stepping stone to even more chances for creativity and collaboration with like-minded scientists and engineers, finally landing him at a postdoctoral position with the University of Florida and then Clemson.

Maja secured a six-year postdoc position in Florida in 2007 that focused on agriculture, though not robotics specifically. Early on, Maja saw an opportunity to create a niche through his emphasis on mechanization.

Transforming the technology

Progress has been swift, and Maja can now envision a day in the not-so-distant future when the technology created in Clemson’s lab is in the hands of everyday farmers, helping them make faster decisions about crop care. The technology Clemson is developing under his guidance today will soon take information from the field and feed it into something as accessible as a smartphone.

Drones and radio-frequency identification are already being used by Maja’s research team to improve inventory management of ornamentals, plants typically found in commercial nurseries. He also has a collaboration with the industry group Cotton Inc. It is a 10-year robotics and automation project for cotton harvesting, and it puts him in close contact with a number of other universities also working toward automation alongside Cotton Inc.

Students are the other key part of Maja’s research group, and he guides them into new areas of understanding, pushing them outside program design into the physical process of building equipment and handling related mechanics.

The day-to-day challenges of tending the fields are ever-present. But expansion is the future, which is why South Carolina’s farmers need support and continued investment to stay competitive.

The new face of farming is equal parts empowered business owner and traditional land manager. Employing new technology to improve efficiency is the next best step to stay ahead of the curve, Maja says.