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Personal Information:
Dr. Maas was born in 1950 in Temple, TX. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology from Texas A&M University at College Station, TX, in 1973 and 1975, respectively. Following graduation, he worked at the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station at Temple, TX. There he developed and tested TAMW, a crop growth simulation model for wheat, and assisted in developing SORGF, a grain sorghum growth simulation model. He subsequently spent two years (1980-1981) in a joint TAES-USDA appointment with the Statistical Reporting Service (now National Agricultural Statistics Service) in Washington, DC. There he investigated the use of crop models in making operational yield predictions. He returned to graduate school in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in agronomy from Texas A&M in 1985, having conducted his graduate research under the guidance of Dr. C.H.M. van Bavel.
As a member of the faculty in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at Texas Tech, Dr. Maas is responsible for teaching graduate-level courses involving microclimatology, crop modeling, and remote sensing. He also conducts research under a joint appointment with the Texas AgriLife Research and as a visiting scientist at the USDA-ARS Plant Stress Laboratory on the Texas Tech campus at Lubbock, TX, where he specializes in the interactions of crop plants with their environment. Dr. Maas received tenure in February of 2004.
Research Interests:
Dr. Maas was a member of the USDA-ARS Remote Sensing Research Unit at Weslaco, Texas, from 1984-1993. At Weslaco, Dr. Maas was involved in numerous studies involving remote sensing of crop growth and condition, and pioneered the development and testing of a methodology for incorporating remotely sensed information into plant growth simulation models. He developed and tested GRAMI, a model that can use remote sensing data in simulating the growth and yield of grain crops, and PrOBE, a model for simulating regional biomass production and evapotranspiration using remote sensing data. He developed a version of the GRAMI model used by the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of USDA in estimating regional crop production.
Texas Tech University,
Department of Plant and Soil Science,
Campus Box 42122, Lubbock, TX 79409 
806. 742-2838 