IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2013 - 72

women in grs
Gail Skofronick Jackson,
GRSS Liaison to IEEE Women in Engineering

s the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) embarks on publishing the new GRS Magazine in 2013, the Society
has also inaugurated an initiative to focus on
women in the geoscience and remote sensing
fields. In future issues this regular magazine
column will explore such topics as promoting networking among women, recruiting a
diverse workforce, work-life balance, diversity,
professional development and gender/diversity statistics for IEEE as a whole, our Society,
our publications and our annual symposium,
IGARSS. We will also occasionally publish feature articles on female leaders, trailblazers, and up-andcoming scientists and engineers within our society. We
hope and expect the topics of this column to be of interest to both women and men.
In this issue we report on our initial activities during
2012. These consist mainly of a new LinkedIn group,
the first-ever Women in Geoscience and Remote Sensing Luncheon at IGARSS and GRSS participation with a
Society liaison to the IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE)
Committee. Having a liaison to WIE allows our Society
to interact with the larger community of WIE to obtain
the pulse of IEEE on women's issues and activities. Our
Women in Geoscience and Remote Sensing LinkedIn
Group was launched in April 2012 and now has over
220 members and more than 35 distinct discussion
topics. Members are from all over the world, including
women and men from students to senior researchers,
and both GRSS members and non-members. If you
are interested in joining, go to www.linkedin.com/
groups?gid=4422435, log into LinkedIn and request to
join our group.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2013.2244706
Date of publication: 17 April 2013

At IGARSS 2012 in Munich, Germany, we held
our first ever Women in Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Luncheon. The event was open to all IGARSS
attendees with an interest in increasing the inclusiveness of geosciences, remote sensing, and engineering professions for both genders. The 50-person
sold-out lunch provided networking opportunities.
Three women speakers, Prof. Melba Crawford, Prof.
Mahta Moghaddam, and Rachel Kroodsma, at various stages of their careers, provided information and
anecdotes from their career paths in geoscience and
remote sensing.
This year we are planning another exciting event
at IGARSS 2013 in Melbourne, Australia. We are also
continuing to post interesting discussion topics on the
LinkedIn page and encourage your recommendations
for additional activities. Information about the Second Annual IGARSS 2013 Women in Geoscience and
Remote Sensing event will be advertised on the IGARSS
2013 Social Program Web page at www.igarss2013.org/
SocialProgram.asp. We look forward to providing informative and interesting articles in future issues of the
GRS Magazine. We welcome your suggestions of material
and topics for future columns. Please feel free to contact
us at gailsjackson@ieee.org.
GRS
ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

march 2013

http://www.linkedin.com/ http://www.igarss2013.org/

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2013