Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Sndlf IEEE Los Angeles Sections (Region 6, Southern) Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Chapter: An Inaugural Chapter Report Website: http://sites.ieee.org/metrola-grss/ Table of Contents History Activities in 2017 Pictures from the Northrop Grumman Panel Event Pictures from the GR4S Summer School Plans for 2018 March Event: Dinner with Dr. Charles Elachi Chapter Operations Information on Chapter Officers
History In August 2009, Erika Podest (Member) with about 40 founding members established the IEEE Metropolitan Los Angeles (MLA) Section Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Chapter. This created a local identity for the historically substantial participation of Los Angeles members in GRSS since its inception. Paul Rosen (Fellow) became chapter chair in 2012 with the expressed goal of broadening the scope of the chapter to include a greater cross section of the institutions in Southern California involved in aerospace and remote sensing. In 2015, Mark Lamb (Member) became chapter chair, and the chapter had ~55 members. The chapter has since grown to 73 members in the Metro LA Section, and draws many others from the surrounding 6 sections in the Greater Los Angeles area. In early 2017, we had several requests from GRSS members in surrounding sections to strengthen our communications and to ensure invitations to talks and activities were shared with all Southern Region 6 members in GRSS. Charlie Jackson from Coastal Los Angeles provided our current contact list to cover GRSS members from outlying areas. The MLA Chapter has over 16 IEEE Fellows while the larger Southern Region 6 Extended GRSS organization has over 20 IEEE Fellows and a total of 159 GRSS members. Our GRSS chapter benefits from the extensive history of aerospace, science, and engineering in Southern California. Several long-standing institutions within the MLA section engage in microwave and infrared remote sensing research, development, and production. Some examples include the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, and Northrop Grumman in Azusa. The chapter has reached out to corporations and universities farther afield, including the Aerospace Corporation and Raytheon in El Segundo, and draws regular attendance at its events from these members. The chapter aims to inform and support GRSS members through a variety of events, including lectures, round table discussions, poster sessions, and panel discussions. To create a strong link between remote sensing and societal relevance for area residents, the chapter incorporates themes related to hazard monitoring and mitigation through remote sensing at suitable events. Activities in 2017 The IEEE Metropolitan Los Angeles GRSS Chapter provides 3-4 events a year for members and their guests. Attendances at events range between 25-70 people with a dedicated core of attendees regularly participating. Past years events have centered on lectures by leaders in their respective fields, speaking on accessible and timely topics. Each lecture event is conducted as a social gathering, including refreshments and ample time to mingle, network, and discuss technical topics. Speakers have included
Distinguished IEEE lecturers, IEEE Fellows, managing engineers from major flight programs, and industry experts working on remote sensing. The chapter benefits from a relationship with the California Institute of Technology s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, which offers a beautiful and comfortable setting on campus for lectures and meetings, and participation of interested students. Our chapter has cohosted several talks with the Photonics Society in 2017, helping to bridge the gap between mm-wave/radar and optical technologies involved in the remote sensing enterprise. This year, in addition to organizing our regular lecture events, we focused on 2 new topics: 1) Growing corporate relationship with nearby builders of remote sensing systems (JPL, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Aerospace Corporation, etc.) and 2) growing our relationship with students at nearby universities (USC, Caltech, UCLA, Cal Poly Pomona, etc.) and Young Professionals. Our main event in growing corporate relationship was a Panel Discussion and Corporate Outreach event on millimeter wave sensing in May featuring 3 industry leaders: Dr. Chris Ruf, Dr. Shannon Brown, and Mr. Jeff Hawkins. We were able to enlist Northrop Grumman as a co-sponsor and the event was held at their facility in Azusa, California. Vice President Bob Mehltretter spoke on the history of the facility and appreciated the opportunity to get exposure to distinguished researchers and to network within the community. After short presentations, Mark Lamb moderated a discussion with panel members on the topic of microwave radiometry. The video is available to distribute. Previous to that event, Justin Lazear coordinated a speed-mentoring session with the panel members and Northrop Grumman Young Professionals. Our main event in growing our relationship with students and YPs was to act as the local GRSS support chapter for the IEEE GR4S summer school enabling us to connect and collaborate with the IEEE YP-GRSS. In July (19-21), prior to the IGARSS conference, our chapter co-hosted the remote sensing summer school providing talks on how to give a successful elevator speech, on how to choose orbits and platforms for remote sensing, and on the fundamentals of remote sensing theory. Our chapter organized an elevator pitch competition and the student teams were judged by 6 GRSS Administrative Committee (AdCom) members. To conclude the summer school, we hosted a Young Professional Dinner. Finally, we have received funding from IEEE GRSS for our ChapNet initiative. We have formed a ChapNet with the Alaska GRSS (the only other GRSS chapter in Region 6) and the UK/Ireland GRSS chapter, as well as the GRSS Young Professionals. Thanks to the generous funding from IEEE GRSS, we now have the opportunity to envision and implement new and effective ways of engaging students and YPs. This is achieved by having a dedicated YP officer in each GRSS chapter who will work to retain or recruit YPs with dedicated joint GRSS/YP activities and events. This program helps to establish a framework that will focus on the pipeline from student members in IEEE Student Chapters to YPs, and YPs to GRSS professionals, enabling the growth of membership and providing new GRSS events for our existing members. The ChapNet team kicked off the initiative in 2017. At the end of this initiative, we will be able to quantify the effect of
having a dedicated YP board member on membership increase and development of educational activities, as well as the effectiveness. The following table gives an overview of our chapter activities in 2017. Colors indicate GRSS-sponsored, GRSS jointly sponsored, GRSS-supported events. Date Event Description Location An IEEE GRSS & Northrop Grumman Special Panel Event with Dr. Chris Ruf (University Future of Space-Based Northrop of Michigan), Dr. Shannon Millimeter-Wave Grumman, Brown (JPL), and Mr. Jeff Radiometry Azusa Hawkins (Northrop Grumman, Naval Research Lab) MAY 4, 2017 MAY 10, 2017 JUL 19-21, 2017 JUL 23-28, 2017 AUG 3, 2017 SEP 7, 2017 YP event with Dr. Chris Ruf, Dr. Shannon Brown, Mr. Jeff Hawkins Executive Tour at SSMIS/ATMS/AMSU Production Facility Networking Event An IEEE Photonics & GRSS Lecture Event by Dr. Michael Hoenk, JPL 2017 GRSS Summer School + Young Professional Event International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) An IEEE GRSS & Photonics Lecture Event by Dr. Ryan M. Briggs, JPL An IEEE GRSS Lecture Event by Dr. Michael Kobrick, JPL UV Detectors and Imaging Arrays Section Chair event (Kevin, Mariko, Rashmi); YP lunch event (Rashmi, Mariko); Industry Forum / Lunch (Kevin); Women in STEM Forum (Mariko) Infrared Sources and Detectors for Deep- Space Science How to map the Earth, or what was the Shuttle for anyway? Northrop Grumman, Azusa Northrop Grumman, Azusa Monrovia San Marino Arlington, Texas Fort Worth, Texas Caltech Campus Caltech Campus
OCT 19, 2017 An IEEE Photonics Lecture Event by Dr. Daniel Wilson, JPL Electron-Beam Fabricated Diffractive Optics for Earth and Space Applications Caltech Campus DEC 15-16, 2017 Region 6 Holiday Event with music by John Doan Christmas Unplugged: Reclaiming The Holiday Spirit Huntington Library Pictures from the Northrop Grumman Panel Event Introduction by IEEE MLA GRSS Chair Kevin Romero and Northrop Grumman s Vice President Bob Mehltretter. Mark Lamb moderated a discussion with Dr. Shannon Brown (JPL), Mr. Jeff Hawkins (Northrop Grumman and Naval Research Lab), and Dr. Chris Ruf (University of Michigan)
Pictures from the GR4S Summer School Excited and ready to for the GR4S Summer School 2017! Learning from the leaders in the field and having fun while doing so!
Preparing the elevator pitch. Pitching in front of the judges; 6 IEEE GRSS Advisory & Executive Committee members. Getting creative to bring your point across. The happy winners got GRSS 50-year anniversary books and Amazon gift cards.
Plans for 2018 March: A networking dinner with Dr. Charles Elachi, former JPL s director will be hosted for new members of the GRSS chapter. May: Remote Sensing themed winter school will be organized as a ChapNet initiative that the chapter has been awarded. This will be to enhance chapter s relationship with the universities and get students interested in the society. May: Panel Discussion and Corporate outreach event. We are planning on hosting the talk at Northrop Grumman in Azusa, California. They are the builders of SSMIS, ATMS, AMSU, CERES (RBI) and many other devices used for climate and weather sensing. May: A speaker event with Dr. Jiancheng Shi on The water cycle observation mission (WCOM), which will be of interest to members from both the corporate and academia. August: YP Poster Session so the students and YP members can showcase their remote sensing research to the GRSS members. November: Evening lecture at Caltech with TBD speaker. By main topics: PART 1) corporate, PART 2) universities Topic Speaker Month Location Event Chair Update GRSS N/A February N/A Mr. Kevin Chapter Materials Romero Networking Dinner with Dr. Charles Elachi MLA GRSS Remote Sensing Winter School Charles Elachi March TBD Dr. Rashmi Shah, GRSS Secretary TBD May Caltech Dr. Justin Lazear, GRSS YP Representative Remote Sensing Panel Discussion The water cycle observation mission (WCOM): Overview YP Student Poster Session Women in STEM Networking Event TBD May Northrup Grumman (Azusa) Dr. Jiancheng Shi Dr. Mark Lamb, GRSS Past Chair May Caltech Dr. Rashmi Shah, GRSS Secretary TBD August Caltech Mr. Kevin Romero, GRSS Chair TBD September Caltech Dr. Mariko Burgin, GRSS Vice Chair
Ground penetrating radar on a drone and on puffer Dr. Mark Haynes November Caltech Dr. Tushar Thrivikraman, GRSS Treasurer March Event: Dinner with Dr. Charles Elachi This event is for the newest GRSS members, which will provide dinner and networking opportunity with former JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/charles_elachi). The current tentative dates are March 20, 21, and 22. If you recently joined GRSS (~few years), please fill out the form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1g7gbfm3x0hcn4_yaw1lbbjc7yuidtocbjfgrcxfc8u I/ to show your interest and availability. We will confirm your participation at a later date Chapter Operations Our GRSS chapter officers hold meetings every month, planning upcoming activities, brainstorming new concepts, grappling with membership issues, chapter charter, logistics, and many tangential discussions. The secretary takes notes and produces monthly minutes. These monthly meetings are a rewarding and enjoyable part of the chapter activities with considerable back-and-forth and stimulating discussion on a variety of topics, and should be encouraged at other chapters. The GRSS chapter officers attending these meetings include current and past officers: Kevin Romero (Northrop Grumman), Chair Mariko S. Burgin (JPL), Vice Chair Rashmi Shah (JPL), Secretary Tushar Thrivikraman (JPL), Treasurer Justin Lazear (Northrop Grumman), GRSS-YP Liaison Paul Rosen (JPL), Past Chair Mark Lamb (Northrop Grumman), Corporate Liaison and Past Chair Past officers: Alireza Tabatabaeenejad (USC), Piyush Agram (JPL), Elaine Chapin (JPL) Chapter events are advertised through the IEEE mailing list services. Generally, an email is sent one month prior, one week prior, and one day prior to the event. JPL s Office of the Chief Scientist endorses our chapter activities, allowing advertising on the JPL internal web page one week prior to the event, reaching an audience of 3000 technical people at JPL. Our secretary Rashmi Shah maintains an up-to-date website (http://sites.ieee.org/metrola-grss/), Facebook page (@LAMETROGRSS) and Twitter feed (@LosAngelesGRSS) where our events are advertised. Finally, an important part of the chapter s continuity is the support and good relationship with the IEEE Metropolitan Los Angeles Section and the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society.
Information on Chapter Officers Kevin Romero has been a member of IEEE MLA GRSS since 2013, serving as a treasurer (2015), vice-chair (2016), and chair (2017). He has been recently elevated to an IEEE senior member. Kevin has also been a member (2002-2006), program chair (2007-2013) and vice president (2013- present) of the southern California chapter of IEST (Institute of Environmental Science and Technology), an organization focused on test methods for aerospace system since 2000. He is the author of over eight Northrop Grumman invention disclosures several of which are under consideration for US patents. Kevin Romero won the 2016 Copernicus Challenge at Northrop Grumman for Situational Awareness for Degraded Visual Environments, a concept of providing replicated imagery data to a pilot of an obscured target scene using data from remote sensors combined and processed into a real-time 3D volumetric raster DB scene. Kevin has had multiple roles at Northrop Grumman in Azusa (formerly Aerojet), which he joined in 1987. Recently these include engineering lead for a science instrument design with an FFRDC, consultant to other programs including NASA s CERES and the MDA s PTSS, and sensor concept development. Kevin Romero graduated from Linfield College with a BA in Physics in 1983 and with a MS from WSU in Theoretical Physics in 1985. Mariko S. Burgin is a Radar Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and a Visiting Associate Researcher at the University of California (UCLA). Her scientific research focuses on electromagnetic modeling and retrieval algorithm development for active and passive microwave remote sensing applications. She currently leads two NASA Earth Science Research Program projects to improve soil moisture estimation from space. Mariko Burgin holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She was previously a Visiting Researcher at University of Southern
California (USC) and a Postdoctoral Fellow of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She serves on the SMAP Science Team and is the recipient of two NASA Group Achievement Awards. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE), and the IEEE Young Professionals (YP). She is the Director of the IEEE GRSS Women Mentoring Women Program, the Vice-Chair of the IEEE Metropolitan Los Angeles (MLA) GRSS Chapter, and a member of the IEEE GRSS Administrative Committee (AdCom). Rashmi Shah has been a member of IEEE for 10 years and member of GRSS for 6 years. She received her B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York in May 2007. She received M.S. and Ph.D. from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN in December 2010 and May 2014, respectively. During her graduate studies, she interned at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA during summers. She also worked as a Visiting Researcher at Starlab, Barcelona, Spain, in late 2013. She is currently working as a Research Technologist in the Tracking Systems and Applications Section at JPL. Her research interests include earth remote sensing using signals of opportunity as bistatic radar, instrumentation systems and design, and development of algorithm for retrieval of geophysical parameters. She is also part of the calibration/validation team for altimetry series satellites. Tushar Thrivikraman received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2010. His research under Dr. John Cressler focused on SiGe BiCMOS radar front-ends for extreme environment applications. Dr. Thrivikraman joined JPL in 2011, where he has been developing RF hardware for both air and space-borne SAR imaging systems and sub-surface sounding radars.
Justin Lazear received his B.S. in Physics from Caltech in 2008 and Ph.D. in Physics from Johns Hopkins University in 2015 in Prof. Charles Bennett's group. He developed the PIPER CMB polarization instrument with NASA GSFC. Since 2016, Dr. Lazear has worked at Northrop Grumman on technology development for remote sensing applications. Mark Lamb s passion is the art and science of innovation for the greater good. He seeks roles to identify, develop, and incorporate technologies into new or existing products and to facilitate others to do so. Mark holds the position of an advisory system engineer at Northrop Grumman. His management and technical experience encompasses several large spacebased IR and mm-wave programs such as the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) program and Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP), as well as agile and rapid prototyping programs such as the Commercially Hosted Infrared Payload (CHIRP) and the Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Battlespace Awareness Center (OBAC). Some honors include the Northrop Grumman Presidential Leadership Award and various teaching roles for sector-wide courses. Previous employers include the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center, the Texas Center for Superconductivity, John Hopkins University, Arizona State University and the Brno University of Technology. Mark has over twenty publications, a BSc in Chemistry, BSc and MSc in Physics, and PhD in Condensed Matter Physics from the University of Houston.
Paul A. Rosen received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA, in 1981 and 1982, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Stanford, Stanford, CA, USA, in 1989, all in electrical engineering. He is currently a Project Scientist for NASA-ISRO synthetic aperture radar mission concept at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He was the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Project Element Manager for Algorithm Development and Verification from 1996 to 2000 and was the SRTM metrology Tiger Team Lead in 2001. Until 2012, he was the manager of the Radar Science and Engineering Section and Project Scientist for the DESDynI Mission Concept at JPL. His assignments at JPL have centered on scientific and engineering research and development of radar instruments and applications. Prior to JPL, he spent two years at Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan. He is a visiting faculty member and a Lecturer at the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences at Caltech, and has served on the UCLA Extension Program faculty. He is an author of more than 45 journal and book chapter publications, and more than 100 conference papers. Dr. Rosen was a team leader on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, for which he received NASA s Exceptional Service Medal (2001) and NASA s Exceptional Achievement Medal (2002). He is a member of the American Geophysical Union.