IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2019 - 4

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
BY PAOLO GAMBA

Making the GRSS
a Community of Communities

am happy to start this column by reporting some very
positive news. In February, the IEEE Geoscience and
Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) was reviewed by the
Society and Council Review Committee (SCRC) of the
IEEE Technical Activities Board. Every five years, all Societies are reviewed. This is an intensive procedure that
involves writing a comprehensive report describing all
Society activities, including membership development,
publications, conferences, education, professional development, financial management, and strategic planning. I am very pleased that the GRSS was approved
after evaluation by the SCRC without any request for
changes (not even minor ones) in our core activities. Of
course, we can always do more and better, but the way
the GRSS has been managed during the last five years
was deemed very successful: "Significant successes have
been accomplished by the Society since the last SCRC
review in multiple areas of its operation. The SCRC commends the Society for taking action to address recommendations from the previous review."
And now, let's look toward the future. At the moment we are all busy preparing for the 2019 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium
(IGARSS 2019) in Yokohama, Japan. The IGARSS is the
most important meeting for our membership, during
which we discuss the latest results and novel developments in geoscience and remote sensing. We are all
very grateful to the local organizing committee, and
we should not forget that this event is made possible by
the enormous efforts of many volunteers, from reviewers devoting their time to reading and analyzing the
submitted papers to session organizers recommending final decisions on papers to the technical program
committee determining the schedule and content of
the final technical program. These people deserve a big
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2019.2912616
Date of publication: 18 June 2019

thank you from all of us, because everything we benefit
from and enjoy during the conference is a direct result
of their work. As I mentioned previously in terms of the
entire Society, aspects of the IGARSS review and program definition process can also be improved; therefore I welcome suggestions from the membership. Of
course, in general, I am confident we are all trying (and
doing) our best to serve our community.
As I discussed in my first "President's Message" in
the March issue, I am working to make our GRSS
more inclusive, and IGARSS is a great venue for making progress in accomplishing this. The diverse technical program is a way to engage communities that
operate within our field of interest but traditionally do
not connect with our membership. Moreover, other activities at IGARSS can be extremely helpful for starting
new connections and relationships. I would like to stress
three of them: the GRSS Summer School (also known as
GR4S), the Women in GRSS (WinGRSS) initiatives, and
the GRSS booth.
GR4S is focused on attracting students and young
professionals interested in IGARSS topics and motivating them to become involved in the activities of our
Society. GR4S is always held the week prior to IGARSS.
This year, it will be held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, on 23-26 July (see https://gr4s2019
.org/). It is open to Japanese and international students
and provides an excellent opportunity to meet other
students as well as more experienced researchers. GRSS
has also funded a three-year pilot project with the goal
of organizing multiple GR4S instances around the
globe. These new "GR4S Beyond IGARSS" events have
the same objectives but involve groups of students who
cannot attend our flagship conference because of distance and/or funding issues.
The WinGRSS activities this year start with the Women in GRSS luncheon, an informal platform for women
and men to interact and network with senior members
IEEE GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING MAGAZINE

JUNE 2019

https://gr4s2019.org/ https://gr4s2019.org/

IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2019

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