Transforming Remote Sensing Data into Information and Applications (2001)

Roberta Balstad Miller, Chair, has worked and published extensively in the areas of science and technology policy and human interactions in global environmental change. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Currently the director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, she was previously a staff associate with the Social Science Research Council (1975 to 1981), the founding executive director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (1981 to 1984), and director of the Division of Social and Economic Science at the National Science Foundation (NSF) (1984 to 1993). She received NSF’s Meritorious Service Award in 1993. Dr. Miller has served as chair of a number of scientific advisory groups, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Advisory Panel on Advanced Science Institutes and Advanced Research Workshops; the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the Human Dominated Systems Directorate of the U.S. Man in the Biosphere Program; and others. From 1992 to 1994, she served as vice president of the International Social Science Council. Dr. Miller’s National Research Council (NRC) service includes former membership on the Space Studies Board, the Board’s Task Group on Research and Analysis Programs, and the Climate Research Committee. She currently serves on the Committee on Global Change Research.

Mark R. Abbott was an acting assistant professor for the Section of Ecology and Systematics at Cornell University (1978 to 1979) and a postgraduate researcher for the Institute of Ecology at the University of California at Davis (1979 to 1980). From 1980 to 1982, Dr. Abbott was a NATO/NSF postdoctoral fellow of ocean ecology at the Institute of Ocean Studies in Sidney, British Columbia. He was a member of the technical staff of the Oceanography Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1982 to 1988. At the same time, he was also an assistant adjunct professor of the Marine Life Research Group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 1988, Dr. Abbott joined the faculty of the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, where he is dean of the college and a professor of biological oceanography. He currently serves on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth Observing System (EOS) Investigators Working Group (1989 to the present) and is a member of the EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Science Team (1989 to the present). He currently chairs the EOS Payload Panel (1995 to the present). In addition, he serves on NSF’s Joint Global Ocean Flux Study Science Executive Committee (1996 to the present). Dr. Abbott is chair of the Space Studies Board’s Committee on Earth Studies.

Lawrence W. Harding, Jr., is a research professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, with appointments at Maryland Sea Grant and the Horn Point Laboratory. His research focuses on the use of aircraft and satellite remote sensing of ocean color to study phytoplankton responses to nutrient enrichment in estuarine and coastal waters. He also directs Sea Grant educational activities in remote sensing in collaboration with NASA scientists. His main interests include coordination of a regional, multiplatform remote sensing program in the Chesapeake Bay region to further the understanding of ecosystem health by applying new technologies to contemporary ecological issues.

John R. Jensen is a Carolina Distinguished Professor of geography and geographic information systems (GIS) and director of the Remote Sensing Center at the University of South Carolina. His research focuses on remote sensing of vegetation biophysical resources, especially inland and coastal wetlands; remote sensing of urban, suburban and land-use cover; development of improved digital image processing classification, change detection, and error evaluation algorithms; and development of educational materials for remote sensing instruction. Dr. Jensen has conducted contract and grant research for the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site, NASA commercial applications, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) CoastWatch. He is the author of a textbook on remote sensing, Introductory Digital Image Processing: A Remote Sensing Perspective, and was president of the American Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Society in 1996.

Chris J. Johannsen is director of the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing and a professor of agronomy at Purdue University. His research interests are in spatial, spectral, and temporal aspects of remote sensing relating to GIS as applied to precision agriculture, land resource development, and land degradation. He was director of the Environmental Sciences and Engineering Institute (previously Natural Resources Research Institute) (1988 to 1995) and director of the Agricultural Data Network (1985 to 1987) at Purdue University. From 1981 to 1985, Dr. Johannsen was the director of the Geographic Resources Center, Extension Division, at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Dr. Johannsen has been named fellow to the American Society of Agronomy, the Soil Science Society of America, and the Soil Conservation Society of America and is a member of the International Soil Society, the American Society of Photogrammetry, and Sigma Xi. He has served on the Space Studies Board’s Committee on Earth Studies (1995 to 1998), the Committee on NASA Information Systems (1986 to 1987), and the Panel on Earth Resources (1982 to 1983).

Molly Macauley is a senior fellow at Resources for the Future (RFF), where she directs the space economics research program. Her research interests include space economics and policy, recycling and solid waste management, urban transportation policy, and the use of economic incentives in environmental regulation. An economist at RFF since 1983 and a long-time analyst of the commercial use of space technology, Dr. Macauley offered her views to Congress in May 1997 on how government can foster burgeoning commercial ventures into satellite remote sensing. One of her major research projects looks at the ongoing economic-as well as privacy, security, and other-implications of U.S. companies selling images photographed by privately owned satellites in outer space. Her other research projects involve exploring the use of economic incentives to manage space debris; the allocation of scarce energy, water, utilities, and telecommunications resources on the International Space Station; the value of geostationary orbit; and the value of information, particularly information derived from space-based remote sensing. She was a member of the Space Studies Board’s Task Group on Setting Priorities for Space Research and the NRC Committee on the Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve. She currently serves on the NRC’s Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board’s Committee for the Assessment of NASA’s Space Solar Power Investment Strategy.

John S. MacDonald is a consultant and is chairman of the Institute for Pacific Ocean Science and Technology. He is one of the founders of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., where he was responsible for all aspects of business operations, overall strategic leadership, technical leadership, and market positioning worldwide. Dr. MacDonald’s professional interests lie in the areas of advanced digital systems engineering, remote sensing, and image processing. He led the design team for the first Landsat ground-processing system produced by

MDA, Ltd., and was involved in the early development of synthetic aperture radar processing at this company. His technical activities have been in the areas of information extraction from advanced sensor systems and the applications of remote sensing with particular emphasis on the physics of the backscatter process and the use of integrated datasets as a means of increasing the ability to extract useful information from remotely sensed data.

Jay S. Pearlman is development team manager at TRW, Inc., in Redondo Beach, California. His background includes basic research, program management, and program development in sensors and systems. He has played an important role in the development and implementation of new concepts and capabilities for both the military and the civil sectors of the U.S. government. He is currently working on the EO-1 Hyperion sensor as the project’s principal investigator and is actively involved with the EO-1 Science Validation Team in assessing the benefits of hyperspectral imagery. Dr. Pearlman is also involved in an assessment of the viability of multispectral and hyperspectral commercial applications.

John E. Estes¹ was a professor of geography at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB). His areas of specialization included interpretation and analysis of remote sensor data and use of geographic information systems (GIS) for land use/land cover and regional-resource-base determination and evaluation. Prior to coming to UCSB in 1969, Professor Estes worked in both government-as an intelligence analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency-and industry-for the Science Services Division of Texas Instruments, Inc. He served as senior visiting scientist for the Universities Space Research Association, working with the National Mapping Division of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the NASA Office of Mission to Planet Earth. Professor Estes received his Ph.D. from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1969. He conducted contract and grant research on both the fundamental and applied aspects of the use of remote sensor and GIS. This work included studies for NASA on land-use/ land-cover identification and change detection, validation of land-cover products, mapping of protected areas, crop identification, and modeling of water demand, among others. He worked with the U.S. Forest Service on fire fuels monitoring and modeling, the National Biological Survey on biodiversity protection and GAP analysis, and the USGS and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on the detection of marine oil pollution. Work conducted for other federal agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense, emphasized hazard and pollution detection,

monitoring, modeling, and resources management, while his work for the National Science Foundation emphasized GIS and spatial analysis.

W. Jeff Lillycrop is the director of the Joint Airborne Lidar Bathymetry Technical Center of Expertise (JALBTCX), a partnership between the U.S. Army Engineer District Mobile, the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office, and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. The JALBTCX operates the SHOALS airborne lidar system and performs R&D to expand the capabilities of airborne lidar to support Department of Defense requirements. He has worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since 1983, and he holds a master’s of science degree in coastal and oceanographic engineering from the University of Florida. Mr. Lillycrop is a trustee of the Hydrographic Society of America and has published more than 50 technical papers related to airborne lidar, surveying and mapping, sediment management, and other topics related to coastal engineering.

Eugene Paul Meier is currently assigned to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) National Exposure Research Laboratory and is stationed at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi as the EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) liaison to the Gulf of Mexico Program (GMP). Dr. Meier is responsible for linking the research and technical capabilities of ORD to GMP requirements. His responsibilities include coordinating GMP activities and requirements in the development of the ORD research program; leading the GMP’s Strategic Environmental Assessment Team; chairing the GMP’s Monitoring, Modeling, and Research Committee; acting as GMP lead for its Data and Information Transfer Committee; and providing technical assistance for GMP activities. Dr. Meier has 30 years of experience in basic and applied research related to health and environmental science. He has specialized experience in the development of methods for analysis of environmental samples; development of methods for management and disposal of pesticides and hazardous waste; quality assurance in environmental monitoring; applications of remote sensing technology; and management of environmental monitoring programs. He received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1965 and his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Colorado in 1969.

Michael K. Orbach is a professor of marine affairs and policy and the director of the Duke University Marine Laboratory and the Coastal Environmental Management Program in the School of the Environment at Duke University. His B.A. is in economics from the University of California at Irvine, and his M.A. and Ph.D. are in cultural anthropology from the University of California at San Diego. From 1976 to 1979 he was a social anthropologist and social science advisor with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C. From 1979 to 1982 he was associate director of the Center for Coastal Marine Studies

at the University of California at Santa Cruz. From 1983 to 1993 he was professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and a senior scientist with the Institute for Coastal and Marine Resources at East Carolina University. He joined Duke, with offices at the Duke Marine Laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1993. Dr. Orbach has performed research and has been involved in coastal and marine policy on all coasts of the United States and in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Alaska, and the Pacific and has published widely on social science and policy in coastal and marine environments. Among his publications are Hunters, Seamen and Entrepreneurs: The Tuna Seinermen of San Diego (University of California Press, 1977); “U.S. Marine Policy and the Ocean Ethos” (Marine Technology Society Journal, 1982); North Carolina and the Sea: An Ocean Policy Analysis (with D.Moffitt et al., North Carolina Department of Administration, 1985); and “A Fishery in Transition: The Impact of Urbanization on Florida’s Spiny Lobster Fishery” (with J. Johnson, City and Society, 1991).

J. David Roessner is a professor of public policy at Georgia Institute of Technology and associate director of the Science and Technology Policy Program at SRI International. Prior to joining the Georgia Tech faculty in 1980, he was principal scientist and group manager for Industrial Policy and Planning at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado. He served as a policy analyst with the National Science Foundation’s R&D Assessment Program and, subsequently, as acting leader of the Working Group on Innovation Processes and Their Management in the Division of Policy Research and Analysis at NSF. Previously he was a research associate at the Bureau of Social Science Research, Inc. His first professional position was as a development engineer for Hewlett-Packard Co. in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Roessner’s research interests include national technology policy, the evaluation of research programs, the management of innovation in industry, technology transfer, and indicators of scientific and technological development. In addition to numerous technical reports, he has published papers in policy-oriented journals and has authored and edited several books. Dr. Roessner received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering from Brown University and Stanford University, respectively. He returned to graduate school after working at Hewlett-Packard to receive a master’s degree in science, technology, and public policy from Case Western Reserve University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in the same field in 1970.

Jan Svejkovsky is the founder and president of Ocean Imaging, Inc., where he is responsible for managing and directing all scientific and corporate developments. The company focuses on applied research and facilitates technology transfer for new operational applications. Dr. Svejkovsky is principal investigator on research grants from NOAA, NASA, NSF, the Navy, the state of California, and corporations. Through Ocean Imaging, he has also developed commercial pro-

grams for near-real-time generation and dissemination of satellite-based ocean environmental analyses to research vessels, the offshore oil industry, and commercial and sport fishing fleets in the United States and foreign countries. Ocean Imaging also provides contractual satellite oceanography support for numerous university research teams. Dr. Svejkovsky’s prime interest is in identifying new potential markets for remote sensing technology and developing customized products and services for those markets. In recent years, he directed advanced development and commercialization of satellite and nonsatellite oceanographic techniques for diverse research and coastal applications, including sewage, storm runoff and other pollution effluent monitoring (using optical, infrared (IR), and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors); high-resolution surface current detection (using IR, SAR, and optical imagery); and multispectral algorithms for bathymetry surveys and bottom substrate mapping. Since mid-1998, Ocean Imaging has operated its own multispectral aerial sensor for coastal research and environmental monitoring and, since 1999, rapid-response agricultural remote sensing.

Stephen J. Walsh is a professor of geography and the director of the Landscape Characterization and Spatial Analysis Laboratory in the Department of Geography at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. He is the former Amos H.Hawley Professor of Geography and Director of the Spatial Analysis Unit at the UNC Carolina Population Center, as well as the past chair of the Remote Sensing and GIS Specialty Groups of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). In 1997, Dr. Walsh was awarded the Outstanding Contribution Award and Medal from the Remote Sensing Specialty Group of the AAG, and in 2000 he was awarded Research Honors from the Southeastern Division of the AAG and was a First Prize recipient of the 2000 ERDAS Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing. He is on the editorial boards of Plant Ecology, Journal of Geography, The Professional Geographer, GeoCarto International, and the Southeastern Geographer and recently co-edited special issues on remote sensing in Journal of Vegetation Science and Geomorphology. Professor Walsh’s research interests are in remote sensing, GIS, spatial analysis, physical geography, and population-environment interactions. His current projects include research being conducted in Ecuador and Thailand on land-use and landcover dynamics associated with deforestation and agricultural extensification, in Montana on alpine tree line and environmental change, and in North Carolina on landscape dynamics and ecological gradients.

Robert Arnone has been involved with ocean color remote sensing optics for the last 17 years and currently heads the Ocean Optics and Remote Sensing Section in the Ocean Technology Directorate at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Stennis Space Center. He leads a team of 15 people that is currently involved in

basic, exploratory, and applied sciences in ocean optical and remote sensing by satellite and aircraft sensing of the ocean surface. The section is involved in national and international oceanography programs and maintains satellite receiving antennas and advanced in situ optical instrumentation. He has been on the adjunct faculty to the University of Southern Mississippi (Marine Science Department) since 1989, has served on several graduate student committees, and has approximately 5 students. He is responsible for more than 40 publications and 100 presentations. His research interests include ocean color algorithm development, biophysical processes in coastal and open oceans, and satellite databases of optical properties.

Anne Hale Miglarese is chief of the Coastal Information Services branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coastal Services Center. In addition to holding bachelor’s and master’s degrees in geography from the University of South Carolina, Ms. Miglarese also graduated from Leadership South Carolina and the Executive Institute. Ms. Miglarese is past chairwoman of the South Carolina State Mapping Advisory Committee and a board member of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Associations. She is currently the chair of the Federal Geographic Data Committee Subcommittee on Bathymetric and Nautical Charting Data, the U.S. Department of Commerce representative to the Civilian Applications Committee, and a member of the editorial board of Geo Info Systems magazine.

Walter Schmidt received his Ph.D. from Florida State University. He is currently the state geologist of Florida and chief of the Florida Geological Survey. His background includes degrees in oceanographic technology, geology, and marine geology. He is a former president of the Association of American State Geologists and a current member of the NRC’s Ocean Studies Board. Dr. Schmidt’s research interests include stratigraphy, hydrogeology, and environmental geology applied to public policy.

Michael Thomas was appointed as director of the Applications, Commercial, and Education Division in NASA’s Earth Science Enterprise in March 2000. He comes to the Earth Science Enterprises from the Stennis Space Center, where he was deputy program manager for the NASA Commercial Remote Sensing Program. Before joining NASA, Dr. Thomas worked in the private sector, where he directed the development of new products for government and commercial use; planned and implemented the transition of new capabilities from the laboratory to operational settings; acted as liaison between corporate R&D and operational divisions; conducted his own research in artificial intelligence, pattern matching, and natural language understanding; and taught at the university level. Dr. Thomas has several degrees in anthropology, each with a different focus. He earned a B.A. (archeology) from the University of Texas at Austin (1973) and an M.A.

(cultural anthropology) from Washington State University (1976). After completing a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship in Java, Indonesia, he went on to earn a Ph.D. (linguistics) at Washington State University (1978). Dr. Thomas is fluent in Indonesian and has a working knowledge of Malay, as well as training in Spanish, German, Dutch, Samoan, and Chamorro, the language spoken by the original people of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

James Yoder is a professor of oceanography at the Graduate School of Oceanography (GSO) of the University of Rhode Island. He currently serves as interim dean of GSO and plans to return to the faculty later this year. He received his Ph.D. in 1978, also from the GSO. His first position was as a research associate at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah, Georgia, where he was promoted to professor in 1989. From 1986 to 1988, Dr. Yoder was a visiting senior scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, assigned to the Ocean Branch in the Office of Space Science and Applications at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. He managed the ocean color research program and helped get the SeaWiFS ocean color sensor program under way. In 1989, he joined the oceanography faculty at GSO and in 1993 became GSO’s associate dean for academic affairs. In the fall of 1996, he returned to NASA Headquarters for a year to manage the Biological Oceanography program in the Office of Mission to Planet Earth (now the Office of Earth Science). Dr. Yoder has published more than 50 articles in phytoplankton ecology and ocean remote sensing. His present research interests include studying the relationships between physical and biological/biogeochemical processes at regional to basin scales using satellite data as the primary tool. He has served on many national and international committees, including the U.S. JGOFS Steering Committee, the International Ocean Color Coordinating Committee, and the Scientific Executive Committee of NASA’s Earth Observing System program, and is the president-elect of the Oceanography Society.