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    About Us

    Our Story:

    VinSense is an Indiana LLC formed in March 2015 to produce an innovative decision support software system for agricultural crop production. The new technology enables producers, field managers, and winemakers to make better crop management decisions to improve production volume, uniformity and quality and increase profitability and long-term sustainability.

    The VinSense software, initially targeted at the wine grape growing and winemaking industry, will deliver the following value to our customers:

    • Increased crop volume
    • Enhanced crop uniformity
    • Better crop management – cover crop decisions, irrigation practices, pruning, canopy management, and other crop management decisions
    • Long-term crop sustainability
    • Better soil moisture management – resulting in water conservation and lower irrigation costs
    • Optimal soil nutrient management
    • Better environmental protection practices

    Our product is based on the latest soil, viticulture, enology and predictive analytics research, as well as the latest sensing technologies (in situ and remotely sensed). The key unique components of the system are the transformation of this data deluge into easily understood information relevant to crop and winemaking decisions and the incorporation of soil physics and hydrology, viticulture, and enological models to increase the relevance of the information and enable predictive analytics for management and planning. The user friendly visual interface and decision tools are being developed with “real world” producers to ensure that the data provided is relevant, understandable, and, most importantly, actionable.

    Our Team

    Professional Staff

    Photo of Minerva Dorantes

    Minerva J. Dorantes, PhD, Chief Soil Scientist & CEO

    Minerva Dorantes brings over a decade of expertise in soil science, digital soil mapping, soil spectroscopy, soil carbon, and soil health. She has managed large-scale national and international soil mapping projects and led workshops on GIS for soil and crop mapping, remote sensing, and precision agriculture. She has worked with VinSense for over 8 years, developing its soil and crop trait mapping and smart-sampling processes. She is a former Research Soil Scientist with the Soil Health Institute and a co-author of a related patented functional soil modeling technology.

    david_ebert

    David S. Ebert, PhD, CTO

    David E. has over three decades of experience in deploying software solutions for real-world problems, specializing in data analysis, visual analytics, and predictive analytics. He is the principal author of the patent behind VINES decision support system.

    Lise Asimont

    Lise Asimont, Advisor

    Lise Asimont brings 20 years of winegrape industry experience to our company. She incorporates technology with traditional grape growing practices to drive field uniformity to make great wines in the vineyard.  She is a past president of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture and has served on the ASEV and Unified boards.

    Founders

    Professors at Purdue University

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    David S. Ebert, PhD

    David S. Ebert is currently a Gallogly Chair Professor of electrical and computer engineering and the Director of the Data Institute for Societal Challenges at the University of Oklahoma. He is the recipient of the 2017 IEEE Computer Society VGTC Technical Achievement Award, a member of the IEEE VGTC Visualization Academy, an adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering with Purdue University, and the Director of the Visual Analytics for Command Control and Interoperability Center (VACCINE), the Visualization Science team of the Department of Homeland Security’s Visual Analytics and Data Analytics Emeritus Center of Excellence. He received the Ph.D. degree in computer and information science from The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

    Dr. Ebert is a leading expert in integrated, interactive data visualization and analysis, having deployed solutions for effective decision making in medical applications, veterinary applications, public safety, logistics management, weather, and emergency response. He is also very active in the visualization community, teaching courses, presenting papers, co-chairing conference program committees, and holding senior leadership positions in professional societies (IEEE, ACM).

    Christian-Butzke

    Christian E. Butzke, PhD

    The Purdue Wine Grape Team’s Professor of Enology, Dr. Butzke is a past president of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture and current chairman of the Indy International, one of the largest wine competitions in the world. His Extension responsibilities include professional engagement activities from local winery consultations to global winemaking projects. He is editor of “Winemaking Problems Solved” and author of the popular textbook “Wine Appreciation.”

    Butzke has also been Director of Winemaking for Sakonnet Vineyards in coastal New England and a tenured faculty member in the world-renowned Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis.

    Philip Owens

    Phillip R. Owens, PhD

    Dr. Phillip Owens is a Research Leader at the Dale Bumper Small Farms Research Center at USDA ARS in Booneville, AK. His hydropedologic-based research utilizes soil landscape modeling coupled with GIS, remote sensing, terrain attribute analyses and geostatistics to relate soil spatial variability to landscape scale processes.

    Through this research, Dr. Owens has developed a transformational soil mapping technology that predicts soil properties at a high resolution and relates the soil properties to functional responses of plants.

    larry_ebert

    Larry P. Ebert, JD, Founding CEO

    2015-2017