IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2019 - 53

IEEE GRSS REGIONAL LEADER AWARD
The IEEE GRSS Regional Leader Award was established
to promote, recognize, and support members within the
GRSS who have made significant technical, scientific,
and/or organizational achievements in the areas of interest to the geoscience and remote sensing community. The
award shall be considered annually and presented if an outstanding candidate is identified. Preference may be given
to candidates who are pivotal and have made significant
contributions in a region where GRSS membership and local activities have substantially increased in recent years.
Preference may also be given to candidates who are GRSS
members with the grade of IEEE Senior Member or Fellow.
The award consists of a certificate and an honorarium of
US$1,500. This year, the Regional Leader Award was presented to Dr. Ashish Ghosh (Figure 7), professor at and
former head of the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, for
"outstanding contributions to the development of the IEEE
GRSS in Eastern India."
Ghosh was instrumental in the 2012 creation of the GRSS
Chapter in the Eastern Region. After four years he became the
chair at a time when the Chapter was almost stagnant with
about 20 members. Under his leadership, the Chapter has
grown to 65, with members spread across eastern India.
The Chapter has been selected as the nodal Chapter
for the ChapNet program, which since 2017 has encouraged international collaboration among Chapters from
different countries. Two student Chapters were formed
under Dr. Gosh's leadership, one of which won the GRSS
Student Grand Challenge Award in 2018. In addition,
he has been successful in fundraising for Society outreach activities.
IEEE GRSS DAVID LANDGREBE AWARD
The IEEE GRSS David Landgrebe Award, a GRSS career
award, is presented for outstanding contributions in the
field of remote sensing image analysis. The contributions
shall be related to at least one of the following fields: classification, image analysis, feature extraction, change detection, data fusion, and data mining. A certificate is presented
to the awardee. This year, the David Landgrebe Award was
presented to Dr. Giles Foody (Figure 8), professor at Nottingham University, United Kingdom, for "outstanding
contributions in image analysis for mapping and monitoring land cover."
Dr. Foody's main research interests and expertise are in
image classification for thematic mapping, especially in relation to studies of land cover at scales ranging from local
to global. He is a pioneer in the areas of fuzzy or soft-image
and object-based classifications, neural networks to spatially enhance image classifications leading to superresolution mapping, the use of local approaches to enhance landcover representations, and the use of citizen sensors to aid
image analyses. He has authored more than 200 articles for
peer-reviewed journals plus numerous other articles that
have had a major impact. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.
DECEMBER 2019

IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

Figure 9 shows all of the recipients of GRSS special
awards with the presenters.
IEEE GRSS SYMPOSIUM PRIZE PAPER AWARD
The GRSS established the IEEE GRSS Symposium Prize
Paper Award to recognize authors who have presented an
exceptional paper in terms of content and impact on the
GRSS at IGARSS. In selecting the paper, factors considered
include originality, clarity, and timeliness of publication.

FIGURE 7. Ashish Gosh (right) receives the 2019 IEEE GRSS

Regional Leader Award from GRSS President Paolo Gamba.

FIGURE 8. Giles Foody (right) receives the 2019 IEEE GRSS

David Landgrebe Award from GRSS President Paolo Gamba.

FIGURE 9. Recipients and presenters of the GRSS special awards

(from left): Antonio Plaza, Giles Foody, Ashish Gosh, Si-Wei Chen,
and Paolo Gamba.
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IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - December 2019