IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2019 - 5

President's message
BY Paolo Gamba

A More Inclusive GRSS

T

his is my first message as the new IEEE Geoscience
and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) president, and I
would like to start by thanking our Society's Administrative Committee for their trust, as well as many of you
for your kind words and messages of congratulations.
Thank you!
As I begin my term as GRSS president, I am extremely
happy to report that our Society's membership has grown
significantly during the past two years, under the leadership of Past-President Adriano Camps. This growth has
been both geographical, with a phenomenal increase in
the number of members in Regions 8, 9, and 10, and in
number of Chapters, from 62 in 2016 to 76 at the end of
2018. The end of 2018 marked a very important milestone;
for the first time, the GRSS boasts more than 4,000 members! This growth reflects a rapid increase in memberships in China and India, thanks to the work of Adriano
Camps, as well as that of our director of Global Activities,
Paul Rosen, and his team of regional coordinators.
These are excellent results and mean that the GRSS
is among the fastest-growing Societies in the IEEE, but
we still have too few members in important areas of the
world, such as Africa, southeast Asia, and the Pacific region. While it is true that we have a diverse membership,
fewer than 15% of our members are women, and members from industry represent only a small (too small!) fraction of our membership. During my time as GRSS president, I will strive to make our Society more inclusive and
to build more connections, both internally among various
groups within our Society and externally with other IEEE
Societies and non-IEEE organizations. To that end, I have
formed an ad hoc Inter-Society Committee, led by Steve
Reising, to foster and enhance activities related to the
memoranda of understanding we have with many other
Societies and to improve cooperation with other groups.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MGRS.2019.2894496
Date of publication: 19 March 2019

march 2019

ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

Sharing knowledge through new or revamped educational initiatives will create a more inclusive GRSS. In
2018, Josée Levesque, GRSS's director of education, began monthly webinars, free for members, on some of
the most important topics in our field. These webinars
are useful for students as an introduction to potential
research areas and for young professionals as they start
to shape their own careers, as well as for anyone who
would like to update his or her knowledge and learn
about novel ideas within the GRSS fields of interest.
Other educational resources available to our members
include review articles in IEEE Geoscience and Remote
Sensing Magazine, as well as tutorials recorded in English and
Spanish to help students and pracDuring my time as grss
titioners in Latin America and
PresiDent, i will strive
around the world stay connectto make our society
ed and benefit from the experience and background of other
more inclusive anD to
GRSS members.
builD more connections.
We can make the GRSS more
inclusive by discussing new ideas
and attracting new areas of expertise to the conferences, workshops, and symposia the
GRSS sponsors technically or financially throughout the
year. These venues promote GRSS membership and resources, provide opportunities to share GRSS expertise and
knowledge, and include new researchers and practitioners
in the GRSS network. Additionally, these events are opportunities to incorporate technical areas that traditionally
are not considered part of remote sensing but are becoming
increasingly important, ranging from computer vision and
deep learning to miniaturized systems and small satellites.
We also can make the GRSS more inclusive by devoting more sessions and events to new topics and
trends during our flagship conference, the International
(continued on p. 102)
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IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - March 2019

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