“I don’t really have a career, and that’s been my career,” Kirk Stueve ’03 says with a laugh. But the truth is more complex: The USC Dornsife alumnus has carved an unusual path that spans the digital realm of artificial intelligence, the people-focused world of consulting and the hands-on work of his family’s Midwestern farm.

With a master’s degree in environmental studies and geographic information science (GIS), Stueve works as a product scientist at a leading AI company where he develops remote sensing and artificial intelligence products for farmers. He also helps run his family’s corn and soybean operation and mentors young scientists — cultivating crops, data and future leaders alike.

High Tech, Deep Roots

The family farm — “a classic northern Midwest farm, in the middle of nowhere” — has always been a touchstone in Stueve’s life. The surrounding county has a population of about 3,000 people and its fertile soil — a gift from an ancient glacial lakebed — makes it one of the most productive and flattest places on Earth. “You can see for miles and miles,” he says. “And there are a lot of fond memories there.”

Stueve was driving tractors by age 5 and for a long time couldn’t imagine a future beyond farming. “That way of life just gets etched into your mind,” he says.

But in his 20s, Stueve felt ready for a bigger challenge. After earning an undergraduate degree in biology, he was accepted to USC Dornsife’s master’s degree program in environmental studies and GIS — a unique blend of environmental science, policy and geospatial data analysis. The chance to move to Los Angeles and experience life beyond the farm added to the appeal.

While Stueve missed the Midwest’s changing seasons, he found inspiration in his studies. “They were a really cool blend of science, technology and policy, all centered on sustainability,” he says. “USC Dornsife was the obvious choice, and it’s still paying off in ways that I never expected.” That includes helping him integrate different strands of learning, enabling him to nimbly pivot among his diverse roles — professor, mentor, scientist and farmer.

Farming the Future

These days, Stueve works as a product scientist and consultant at Ceres AI. The Oakland, California-based agricultural technology company leverages AI and image recognition technology to help acquire, manage and insure farmlands while reducing environmental harm and increasing profits. The role is a great fit for Stueve’s rare blend of on-the-ground agricultural knowledge and tech savvy. It also allows him to return home for two to three weeks each spring and fall to plant and harvest crops on his family farm.

“I’m a little bit of an anomaly there,” he admits with a laugh. Straddling both worlds isn’t always seamless, but it’s given him a rare perspective — one foot in the cornfield, the other in the cloud.

Since sustainability is now baked into the goals of companies ranging from start-ups to multinationals, Stueve uses his expertise to help meet those ambitions. He says there’s still a shortage of people who truly understand sustainability, economics, environmental science and cutting-edge technology like AI — let alone how to connect the dots between them.

“There’s an urgent need, now more than ever, to find people who can bridge those divides,” he says.

“I have to be able to speak farmer and speak science.”

That bridge now extends to the next generation. Stueve has taught GIS, remote sensing and agroecology at a number of institutions, among them Saint Paul College and Johns Hopkins University. This year, he joined the USC Dornsife Alumni Mentorship Program, where he is helping students find meaningful ways to help solve global environmental challenges.

Stueve’s mentee, global geodesign major Shivi Anand, says he’s opened her eyes to emerging career paths in geospatial technology and provided hands-on learning opportunities that have shaped her academic and professional aspirations.

“Thanks to Kirk, I’ve discovered a new application of geospatial technology that could be a promising career path for me,” she says.

Cultivating Crops and Code

Stueve’s use of AI and precision technologies is helping make agriculture more environmentally friendly while boosting yields. His passion for land stewardship runs deep, shaped by a lifetime on the family farm where sustainability was a daily practice, not just a goal.

The developed world is not doing a very good job of growing food sustainably, he says. “The quickest way to propel us in the right direction is to leverage the latest science and technology to grow and do more with less. The latest advances in these fields have given us an unprecedented opportunity to change the world in a positive way that I don’t think anybody thought was possible even five years ago.”

One part of the solution, Stueve explains, involves using technology to identify the most productive areas for farming. This helps reduce pressure on environmentally sensitive lands — including those that provide habitat or clean water, or are vulnerable to wind erosion, runoff and other damage that can pollute waterways and threaten downstream ecosystems.

As part of this effort, Stueve collaborates with the University of Minnesota’s Precision Agriculture Center to secure joint research grants and conduct farm-scale research trials. While most agricultural research relies on small test plots — often just 50 or 100 feet long — Stueve’s work spans full-scale fields, sometimes hundreds of acres. He and his partners use Ceres AI thermal imaging from planes and remote sensing from satellites to test sustainable practices at scale, with the goal of reducing costs, boosting yields and minimizing environmental harm.

Preserving the Past

Stueve’s commitment to his community runs deeper than soil — it’s rooted in heritage. In the rural Midwest where his family owns land, small farms are increasingly being bought up by large conglomerates, erasing not just homes but histories. “I can think of seven, eight, nine different families within a few miles of the farm where I grew up that are no longer there,” he says. “The houses are gone — in some cases, totally demolished.”

So, when Stueve and his wife had an opportunity to buy a historic 1895 dairy farm in Chisago County, Minnesota — just across the state border from their home, a 140-acre farm outside Somerset, Wisconsin — they jumped at the chance. Though the buildings were in disrepair, the couple restored them and leased out the house and surrounding 17 acres, preserving both a piece of local history and a way of life.

Talking Dirt and Data

Stueve deftly bridges the divide between science and agriculture — whether he’s swapping stories over a beer with a local farmer or is deep in discussion with tech executives. “I have to be able to speak farmer and speak science,” he says.

Despite practicing both “dialects” for years, it’s not always easy. “Some farmers think I’m crazy,” he says. “But they say that in a nice way because they’re Midwestern.” Still, he welcomes the challenge. “It keeps me excited to this day, just trying to straddle that divide.”