91Pro

Dr Kanthu Joseph Mhango is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Data Science at 91Pro, where he combines academic research with extensive industry experience in building decision support systems for agriculture. His expertise spans agronomy and crop physiology, process-based crop growth modelling, machine learning, and the development of cutting-edge physics-informed neural networks for crop productivity forecasting.

His research pioneers the integration of causal reasoning and explainable AI into crop modelling, complementing classical models such as WOFOST and AquaCrop. This includes grafting causal reasoning nodes into neural networks, with PhD projects applying these innovations to crop growth modelling and beyond.

His broader research interests include potato agronomy and physiology, improving photosynthetic efficiency, high-throughput plant phenotyping, and food security research. These interests reflect a philosophy grounded on using data-driven methods to create decision support systems that help manage crops and ecosystems more efficiently. This also informs his approach to teaching applied data science. With an industrial research background in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Malawi, his expertise is internationally recognised, with a growing portfolio of externally commissioned advisory roles.

Teaching themes:

• Statistics
• Cloud Computing
• Data Visualisation
• Professional skills for data scientists
• Research methods and GIS

Professional Memberships

Professional membership:

• - Member
• - Fellow (FHEA)