Fairouz Stambouli

Fairouz Stambouli is a Research Scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and holds a Doctor of Engineering (Dr.-Ing) in Synthetic Aperture Radar Technology from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), where she also completed her Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. Her expertise includes radar technology, RF engineering, antenna design, and aerospace systems, with a focus on advancing applications in Synthetic Aperture Radar. Stambouli is an active contributor to the IEEE GRSS, currently serving as Treasurer of the Society. Her previous roles include Chair of the IEEE GRSS Young Professionals and IEEE GRSS Webinar Coordinator and IEEE GRSS Young Professionals Ambassador.

Rufai Balogun

Mohammed Khalid

Mehmet Ogut

Mehmet Ogut is currently the Young Professional Committee Chair. He received his B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey (2007-2011), M.S degree in electrical engineering from the George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA (2011-2013) and Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Colorado State University (CSU), Fort Collins, CO, USA (2015-2018). 

He is currently working at NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, USA as a technologist in Microwave Instrument Science Group. He is the CO-I and JPL lead of Ultra-Wideband Photonic Spectrometer for Planetary Boundary Layer Sensing funded under NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Advanced Component Technology (ACT-20) and the CO-I of Smart Ice Cloud Sensing (SMICES) high frequency radiometer (250-670 GHz), sounder (380 GHz) and radar (240 GHz) awarded under NASA ESTO IIP-19. His expertise is design, testing, calibration and analysis of microwave and millimeter-wave radar/radiometer instruments, developing innovative concepts in radiometry and artificial intelligence applications in remote sensing. Dr. Ogut has applied a novel calibration technique on 670 GHz receiver making THz range receivers available for passive remote sensing achieving high accuracy radiometric measurements. During the Ph.D. study, he worked on the Tropospheric Water and Cloud Ice (TWICE) small satellite instrument funded by the NASA ESTO IIP-13 to develop a millimeter- and sub-millimeter-wave (118 GHz to 670 GHz) radiometer instrument for 6U CubeSat deployment. He focused on the design and testing command and data handling, and power regulation boards, on-orbit reliability analysis of the TWICE instrument including radiation testing and analysis of electrical components, and testing, characterization and calibration of TWICE receivers. In addition, he worked on the deep-learning techniques on the microwave and millimeter-wave radiometry. He applied the deep-learning calibration to High-Frequency Airborne Microwave and Millimeter-wave Radiometer NASA ESTO IIP-10 project instrument.

Saibun Tjuatja

Saibun Tjuatja is the Executive Vice President of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. He received the BSEE degree from the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), MSEE degree from Purdue University, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UTA in 1987, 1988, and 1992, respectively. He is currently an Associate Professor at UTA Department of Electrical Engineering. He served as the Associate Chairman of UTA Department of Electrical Engineering from 1999 to 2002, and is currently serving as the Undergraduate Program Advisor. His research interests include wave propagation and scattering in random media, remote sensing and radar imaging, subsurface sensing, and wireless structural health monitoring. Dr. Tjuatja served as a member of the Organizing Committee and Technical Program Committee for IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS) 1992 and IGARSS 2016, and as a General Co-Chair for the IEEE IGARSS 2017 in Fort Worth, Texas. He is currently serving as IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Executive Vice President, Chair of Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposia (PIERS) Conference Publications Committee, and Co-Chair of Technical Program Committee (in Remote Sensing) of Photonics and Electromagnetics Research Symposium 2024 . He is also the guest editor of Progress in Electromagnetic Research. Dr. Tjuatja is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Chi, a senior member of IEEE, and a fellow of the Electromagnetics Academy.

Mariko Burgin

Mariko Burgin is a Senior Technical Manager in the Space Resources Program at Blue Origin, with over a decade of expertise in geospatial solutions and R&D leadership for Earth, Mars, and beyond. She has extensive experience in applied electromagnetics (modeling, simulation), remote sensing with a microwave focus, geophysical parameter retrieval, and algorithm development. Dr. Burgin worked on advanced technology and early mission concept development for NASA missions. She supported the Mars Sample Return (MSR) as the Break The Chain (BTC) Domain Lead and served as a capture lead, facilitator, and systems engineer in Project Systems Engineering + Formulation at NASA JPL. She is currently the Senior Technical Manager in the Space Resources Program at Blue Origin. Dr. Burgin received an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland, in 2008, followed by a second M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2011 and 2013 respectively. In 2014, she joined the Water and Carbon Cycles Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, as a Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar. She was a Scientist in the Radar Science + Engineering Section at JPL from 2016-2019, a visiting associate researcher at UCLA from 2017-2019, and transitioned to Project Systems Engineering + Formulation in 2019. Dr. Burgin is a member of IEEE and IEEE GRSS. She has been a member of the IEEE GRSS AdCom since 2018. She founded the IEEE GRSS IDEA (Inspire, Develop, Empower, Advance) Committee and was its chair from 2017-2019. She assumed the role of GRSS VP of Information Resources from 2019-2020. In 2021, she was elevated to the position of IEEE GRSS Executive President, and in 2023 was elected GRSS President.

Jett Metcalf

Jett Metcalf is a seasoned recruiter with over a decade of experience in talent acquisition, specializing in geospatial technologies, machine learning, and climate tech. As Co-Founder of ClimateRec LLC, Jett focuses on recruiting at the nexus of talent, technology, and conservation, striving to align innovative skills with impactful environmental solutions. Previously, he served as Head of Talent Acquisition at Regrow Ag, where he led efforts to recruit executive, engineering, scientific, and business talent, driving the mission to leverage agriculture in reversing climate change. His background includes leadership roles at Descartes Labs and recruitment for Google, underscoring his expertise in scaling recruiting functions to meet strategic, high-impact goals.

Tom Coughlin

Tom Coughlin, President, Coughlin Associates is a digital storage analyst

and business and technology consultant. He has more than 40 years in the

data storage industry with engineering and senior management positions at

several companies.

An IEEE Life Fellow, Dr. Coughlin has many publications and six patents. He

is also the author of Digital Storage in Consumer Electronics: The Essential

Guide, which is now in its second edition with Springer. Tom is a regular

storage and memory contributor for forbes.com and media and

entertainment organizations. Coughlin Associates consults and publishes

books and market and technology reports, including The Media and

Entertainment Storage Report and an Emerging Memory Report, and puts

on digital storage-oriented events.

Tom has served in numerous IEEE volunteer leadership roles, including

President of IEEE-USA, Director of IEEE Region 6, Vice President and Board

member of the IEEE Consumer Technology Society, Chair of the Santa Clara

Valley IEEE Section, and Chair of the Consultants Network of Silicon Valley.

He is also active with the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA)

and the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers (SMPTE).

Tianlin Wang

Dr. Tianlin is currently the Chapter Committee Chair at the IEEE GRSS. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2021. He was a postdoctoral scholar with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the ElectroScience Laboratory of The Ohio State University from February 2021 to August 2023. He joined Section 329 - Earth Science at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on August 28, 2023. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi and IEEE Eta Kappa Nu (HKN) engineering honor societies. He received 2018 IEEE Mikio Takagi Student Prize, 2021 Ernest K. Smith USNC-URSI Student Prize, Young Scientist Awards from 44th PhotonIcs and Electromagnetics Research Symposium and XXXVth URSI General Assembly and Scientific Symposium, along with other accolades for his research contributions. He is a recipient of 2020 President’s Postdoctoral Scholars Program (PPSP) Fellowship from The Ohio State University and 2021 Mistletoe Research Fellowship from the Momental Foundation.

Avik Bhattacharya, PhD

Avik Bhattacharya received the integrated M.Sc. degree in mathematics from IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, in 2000, and the Ph.D. degree in remote sensing image processing and analysis from Télécom ParisTech, Paris, France, and the Ariana Research Group, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) Sophia Antipolis, Nice, France, in 2007. He is currently a Professor at the Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering (CSRE), IIT Bombay (IITB), Mumbai, India. Before joining IITB, he was a Canadian Government Research Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS), Ottawa, ON, Canada. He leads the Microwave Remote Sensing Laboratory, CSRE, IITB. His research interests include synthetic aperture radar (SAR) polarimetry, statistical analysis of polarimetric SAR images, and applications of radar remote sensing in agriculture, cryosphere, urban, and planetary studies. Dr. Bhattacharya received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Visiting Scientist Fellowship at Canadian National Laboratories from 2008 to 2011. He was an Associate Editor and the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters (GRSL) from 2019 to 2023. He has been a Guest Editor of the Special Issue on Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing of the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (J-STARS) in 2017. He was one of the guest editors of the Special Stream on Advanced Statistical Techniques in SAR Image Processing and Analysis of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters in 2018. He is the Founding Chairperson of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Chapter, Bombay Section.

Nicole Bienert, PhD

Nicole Bienert received her Ph.D. and master’s in electrical engineering from Stanford University and her B.S. degree in electrical engineering with a minor in physics from the Schreyer Honors College at Pennsylvania State University. Throughout her education, Nicole interned at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and after graduation, she joined Google as an equitable imaging researcher. She then returned to academia as a postdoc at the University of Southern California. She is currently an Assistant professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, in the Department of Electrical, Computer & Energy Engineering. Bienert is a computational imaging researcher in environmental radar remote sensing and computational photography. Her innovations in signal processing, inverse theory, and instrumentation enable 2D-4D imaging at a quality, clarity, resolution, or spatial extent impossible with conventional imaging methods. Her work earned the 2020 IGARSS Prize Paper Award and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Jessica Fayne

Jessica V. Fayne received the M.S. degree in geography and geoinformation science from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA, in 2015 and the Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, in 2022.

She worked as a Contractor for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) 2014–2017 and as a Research Associate for the University of South Carolina, School of Earth, Ocean and Environment (2015–2017), studying improving and calibrating remotely sensed observations of water cycle variables including surface water and soil moisture. From 2017–2022, she was a Visiting Student Researcher at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science.

Archana Kannan

Archana Kannan is currently a PhD student at the University of Southern California. She is working as a research assistant in the Microwave Systems, Sensors, and Imaging Lab at USC. Her research focuses on developing machine learning and physics-guided machine learning techniques for microwave remote sensing. Kannan is the treasurer of the IEEE GRSS-APS-SSCS joint student chapter at USC. She is also the Western ​​USA YP Coordinator of IEEE GRSS.

Josee Levesque

Josée Lévesque received an M.S. degree in geography and remote sensing from the Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada, in 1992 and a Ph.D. degree in earth sciences from Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada, in 2001. From 1992 to 1998, she worked with the Québec Geological Survey as a Contract Geologist and Remote Sensing Consultant. Between 1992 and 1996, she worked as a Teaching Assistant with the Department of Geology at Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada. From 1996 to 2002, she worked as a Contract Research Scientist with the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, where she took charge of research projects in environmental geology using hyperspectral remote sensing. She is currently working as a Research Scientist with the Spectral and Geospatial Exploitation Section, Defense Research and Development Canada (DRDC), Valcartier, QC, Canada. She is the principal author and co-author of more than 40 papers in the area of optical remote sensing applied to environmental geology, terrain mapping, and the detection of unexploded ordnance. Her research interests include the analysis and interpretation of satellite and airborne radar images for structural geology mapping and the use of electro-optical imagery for the search of bio-geochemical anomalies.

Micheal Andrews

Michael Andrews is the Managing Partner of Andrews & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in new product R&D, business and management development, Emergency Planning, Business Mitigation, Response and Resumption Planning, and Operational Readiness programs for businesses, schools, and government entities. Mr. Andrews is a Senior Member of IEEE and served IEEE members as the Region 6 Past Director. Mr. Andrews’ commitment to the community includes STEM and CTE programs, including the Future City Competition and the Smart Education Foundation, host to the SMART Competition. He is also very active with the Salvation Army, Arizona LeaderForceand the Williams Institute for Ethics and Management. He was awarded an IEEE Millennium Medal for outstanding achievements and contributions to IEEE and the IEEE-USA Robert S. Walleigh Award for Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award.

Stephen McClure

Stephen C. McClure was a Research Associate in surveying, mapping, remote sensing, and software engineering with

the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, China.

He has helped many young professionals prepare papers for submission to SCl journals He was an instructor for high level

scientific writing and methods. He taught English composition and technical writing for the geosciences and related

disciplines, and used multidimensional scaling and qualitative methods to systematically evaluate and adjust content and

teaching approach. Stephen's background is in human geography, sociology, and art and design.

Haonan Guo

Jenny Tieu

Project Manager, JPL Education Office

Andrea Olson

NASA JPL Education Office

Reu Kemboi

Reu Kemboi serves as the advisor of the Technical University of Kenya GRSS student branch chapter.

Lekhraj Saini

Lekhraj Saini is currently a Ph.D. Research Fellow in Atmospheric Science at IIT Indore, where his work focuses on climate change studies over the Arctic, specifically investigating precipitation patterns in the region. He serves as the Chairperson of the IEEE GRSS Student Chapter at IIT Indore, where he leads initiatives to provide insights into the latest research in geosciences and remote sensing through workshops and technical talks.In addition to his academic pursuits, Saini has been elected General Secretary for Hostel Affairs at the Students’ Gymkhana, where he is dedicated to enhancing the student community and creating a supportive environment for students away from home. He also works as a freelance Subject Expert in physics on platforms such as Chegg India, Course Hero, and Transtutor, helping students resolve academic queries and assignments. Saini holds a Master’s degree in Physics with a specialization in Astrophysics and General Theory of Relativity from the University of Delhi and a Bachelor’s degree in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics from the University of Rajasthan.