IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - September 2015 - 140

FiguRe 3. IGARSS 2015 General Co-Chairs Vito Pascazio (left) and Sebastiano B. Serpico (right), the Technical Program Co-Chairs,
Lorenzo Bruzzone (2nd left) and Paolo Gamba (2nd right).

resources, public services, security, etc., that the interdisciplinary field of remote sensing will be definitely
among the top 10 most promising technology trends into
the future." Lorenzo Bruzzone and Paolo Gamba, the
Technical Program Co-Chairs presented in their Symposium introduction the session organization and the
accompanying activities.
After these welcome addresses the recognition of the
IEEE GRSS 2015 Fellows and the presentation of the IEEE
GRSS Major Awards followed.
Fellow Recognitions at the PlenaRy session
After the welcome addresses the awards and recognitions were presented. Eight IEEE GRSS 2015 Fellows
were recognized, a very good number for GRSS, and
three GRSS Major Awards were presented. As usual the
Plenary Session was chosen for the recognition of the
2015 IEEE GRSS Fellows. IEEE President Howard E.
Michel congratulated the Fellows on the podium and
presented small gifts, including the book "50 Years History of IEEE GRS-Society".

FiguRe 4. IEEE President Howard E. Michel and IEEE GRSS

President Kamal Sarabandi.
140

ieee Fellow awaRds
The grade of IEEE Fellow recognizes unusual distinction in
the profession and shall be conferred only by invitation of
the IEEE Board of Directors upon a person of outstanding
and extraordinary qualifications and experience in IEEE
designated fields. The IEEE bylaws limit the number of
members who can be advanced to Fellow grade in any one
year to one per mil, that is 1 in 1,000, of the Institute membership, exclusive of students and affiliates. To qualify, the
candidate must be a Senior Member and be nominated by
an individual familiar with the candidate's achievements.
Endorsements are required from at least five IEEE Fellows
and an IEEE Society best qualified to judge. The IEEE Fellow
Committee, comprising 50 IEEE Fellows, carefully evaluates
all nominations and presents a list of recommended candidates to the IEEE Board of Directors for the final election.
GRSS succeeded with twice the IEEE-average number
of Fellows in 2015. The following GRSS members were elevated to the Fellow status, effective January 1st 2015:
◗ Dara Entekhabi from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
◗ Antonio Plaza from University of Extremadura, Caceres, Spain
◗ Gail Skofronick-Jackson from NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA
◗ Son Van Nghiem, California Institute of Technology Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA
◗ Fernando Teixeira from Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA
◗ Ridha Touzi from Canada Center for Remote Sensing,
Ottawa, Canada
◗ Ji Wu from National Space Science Center, Beijing,
China
◗ Alexander Yarovoy from Delft University of Technology,
Delft, The Netherlands
Dara Entekhabi received his Fellow Award with the
citation: "For contributions to microwave remote sensing of soil
moisture."
ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

september 2015

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