FATIMA: A European Project on Precision Agriculture with Emphasis on Variable Rate Nitrogen Fertilization

Stamatis was born and attended high school in Athens, Greece. He received his B.Sc. degree in 1980 in biology from the University of London, his M.S. in 1983 and Ph.D. in 1986 in soil biology & ecology from the department of Environmental Science and Forestry, SUNY, Syracuse, New York. Upon graduation, he held a postdoc appointment as a research associate in Soil Microbiology with John Doran, Ph.D., (by cooperative agreement between the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and USDAAgricultural Research Service). From 1989–1992 he taught terrestrial ecology and soil microbiology at the University of the Aegean, Greece, while at the same time he established the Soil Ecology and Biotechnology Laboratory at the Goulandris Natural History Museum, Athens, Greece. His early laboratory research concerned mass protein production from earthworms and microalgae. In the 1990s he collaborated with ARS-Lincoln and UC-Santa Cruz for development of soil quality indicators. Since 2000, he works in association with James Schepers, Ph.D., of ARS-Lincoln, on ground-sensor remote sensing technologies and variable-rate nitrogen application systems. Latest accomplishments are the direct funding of two European Union projects on precision nitrogen and water management— HydroSense and FATIMA—while maintaining an adjunct professor status at Nebraska.