IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2017 - 85

Education
Linda Hayden

Celebrating the Exceptional Education
Efforts Within Our Society

fully polarimetric, SAR experiments in
he purpose of the IEEE GeosciCebu, Philippines, and in several selectence and Remote Sensing Society
ed sites in the Korean Peninsula with his
(GRSS) Educational Award is to reward
graduate students.
significant educational contributions
From the early days of his career,
in the field of remote sensing, and this
Dr. Moon has been focusing on his
award is only given when an outstandresearch and educating his students
ing recipient is identified. Dr. Wooil
with the radar altimeter, starting with
M. Moon (Figure 1) was nominated for
SeaSat, and SAR, including ERS-1/2,
the Education Award three years ago,
JERS-1, RADARSAT-1/2, ALOS-1/2,
but he declined the award because of
TerraSAR, and TanDEM. His recent rehis position as vice president of GRSS
search contribution includes the research
Professional Activities and the Major FIGURE 1. Dr. Wooil M. Moon.
and development of fully polarimetric
Award Committee. However, the 2016 (Photo courtesy of Dr. Moon.)
SAR applications in environmentalInternational Geoscience and Remote
change monitoring at carbon dioxide sequestration sites,
Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) proved to be an ideal
intertidal flats, and active volcaopportunity to recognize Dr. Moon's exceptional edunoes around the world. Currently,
cational efforts. The IGARSS 2016 was held in Beijing,
Dr. Moon is conducting research
China, and Dr. Moon's former students and postdocDR. Moon was a lEaDInG
projects funded by the Natural
toral fellows are active faculty members at the three top
DEvElopER oF
Science and Engineering Research
Chinese universities in Beijing, i.e., Tsinghua University,
MathEMatIcal anD
Council (NSERC), Canada, and
Peking University, and the University of Science and
alGoRIthMIc
the National Center of Excellence,
Technology in Beijing.
Canada. Specific to this award, he
Dr. Moon was a leading developer of mathematical
MUltItEMpoRal anD
has graduated 54 M.Sc. degree and
and algorithmic multitemporal and multisource (sensor)
MUltIsoURcE (sEnsoR)
15 Ph.D. degree students, and they
spatial information fusion in the early 1990s and created
spatIal InFoRMatIon
are now working at NASA (JPL);
the IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Technical Committee in 1994.
FUsIon In thE
DLR, Germany; and many leadThe basic approach was to fuse the spatial information exEaRly 1990s.
ing universities, including Peking
tracted from optical and EMW scattering data [radar alUniversity, China; Harbin Institute
timeter and synthetic aperture radar (SAR)] to form and
of Technology, China; Seoul Naidentify the target object(s). The IEEE GRSS Data Fusion
tional University, Korea; Yonsei University, Korea; Niigata
Technical Committee is currently one of the most active
University, Japan; and Royal Military College, Canada.
technical committees in GRSS today. In 1999-2000, Dr.
Dr. Moon remarks, "I am very grateful to all my colMoon planned, participated, and led the Pacific Rim (PACleagues and students for the recognition. I have been atRIM) NASA [Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)] Airborne
tending IGARSS conferences from the beginning, missing
Synthetic Aperture Radar (AIRSAR) multiple-frequency,
only few, and have been an active teacher and researcher
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2017.2649226
Date of publication: 16 March 2017

march 2017

ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

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