2014 ASPRS Fellow Award Winners Announced

Bon A. Dewitt, Rongxing Li, Richard A. Pearsall, Karen L. Schuckman and Douglas A. Stow have been named the 2014 ASPRS Fellow Award winners. The ASPRS designation of Fellow is conferred on active ASPRS members who have performed exceptional service in advancing the science and use of the mapping sciences (photogrammetry, remote sensing, surveying, geographic information systems and related disciplines).

The designation of Fellow is awarded for pro­fessional excellence and for service to the Society. Candidates are nominated by other active members, recommended to the Fellows Committee, and elected by the ASPRS Board of Directors. Up to 0.3 percent of the Society’s active members may be elected as Fellows in any one year. The nominees must have made outstanding contributions in a recognised Society specialisation whether in practice, research, development, administration or education in the mapping sciences. Members of the Fellows Committee and the Executive Committee are ineligible for nomination. This year’s awards will be presented in March at the ASPRS 2014 Annual Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

A brief description of each award winner has been provided below. For complete profiles of the awardees, please visit the ASPRS website. 

Bon A. Dewitt is currently an associate professor and director of the geomatics programme at the University of Florida. Dr Dewitt has been working as a faculty member in the geomatics programme for more than 22 years where he has been teaching undergraduate and graduate level courses in photogrammetry, digital mapping, geodesy, least squares adjustments, hydrographic surveying, subdivision design and route geometrics as well as other mapping science topics.

The University of Florida recognised his instructional aptitude by presenting him with two of the coveted “Teaching Improvement Program” Awards, in 1994 and again in 1999. He has also served as the faculty advisor of the ASPRS Student Chapter at the University of Florida for the past 19 years. He continues to encourage students to join the Society as student members and has been a member champion several times.

Dr Dewitt has contributed significantly to the mapping science community in the state of Florida and nationally through many professional continuing education seminars. He has been involved in writing and quality-checking exam questions in the subjects of surveying and photogrammetry for the NCEES. He has also served as a private consultant and expert witness in numerous court cases involving forensic photogrammetry.

Rongxing (Ron) Li is currently a professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science at The Ohio State University, where he has worked since 1996, and a Lowber B. Strange designated professor since 2005. A 20-year member of ASPRS, Dr Li has been an ASPRS Certified Photogrammetrist since 1991.

Dr. Li is a world renowned scholar in the fields of geospatial information, photogrammetry and remote sensing. He has received numerous highly prestigious awards from ASPRS, NASA, and other organizations. He is one of the pioneers in high-resolution satellite image stereo processing (IKONOS and QuickBird) and was one of the early developers of mobile mapping systems. His unique leading position in planetary mapping and rover/astronaut navigation (mission operations) is evidenced by the fact that he has been selected as participating scientist and made critical contributions to both the NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER 2003) mission and the Lunar Reconnaissance Obiter (LRO 2009) mission. Dr Li and his research results have been featured at NASA press conferences and on ABC news, Space.com, and other TV/radio/web media programmes as well as in National Geographic, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Denver Post, and Columbus Dispatch.

Richard (Rick) A. Pearsall is presently retired and lives with his wife Glenda, in Philomont, Virginia. Graduating with honours from Johnsburg Central School in North Creek, New York in 1969, Pearsall received his bachelor’s degree in forest engineering from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 1974 and a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering – surveying and mapping from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976.

From 1976 to 2007, Pearsall worked for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Mapping Division. At USGS, he was involved in every phase of mapping to include field surveys, photogrammetry and cartography. In 1981, he completed the USGS Cartographer Development Program.

In 2007, Pearsall left USGS and went to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to serve as a GEOINT Standards Officer, responsible for the development and advocacy of major Information Technology and Service Oriented Architecture GEOINT standards for the US Department of Defense. During his career at USGS and NGA, Pearsall received numerous national and governmental awards and citations for his work in geographic and cartographic map standardisation. He retired from Federal Service in April 2011, after more than 34 years of public service.

Karen L. Schuckman is currently a senior lecturer in geography at Pennsylvania State University, teaching remote sensing and geospatial technology in the online programmes offered by the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute. She has also served as president of Seven Valleys Consulting LLC since 2007.

Schuckman has served as a consultant to URS Corporation in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she provided expert knowledge in remote sensing and photogrammetry to engineering practice groups, including floodplain mapping, disaster response and preparedness, critical infrastructure, and transportation. She also held several positions at EarthData (now Fugro EarthData), including geospatial applications director for EarthData Solutions, senior vice-president of EarthData Technologies, and president and general manager of EarthData International of North Carolina.

Schuckman directed notable projects for EarthData including Lidar acquisition for the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program, numerous transportation mapping projects for state DOTs, and technology demonstration projects for NOAA, NASA and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Prior to joining the private sector, Schuckman worked for the United States Geological Survey National Mapping Division in Menlo Park, California. She immediately demonstrated her technical expertise by developing the rigorous Global Positioning Systems (GPS) specifications for the USGS digital orthophoto contract being managed by the USGS office in Menlo Park. Schuckman is also an ASPRS past president.

Douglas A. Stow is a professor of geography at San Diego State University (SDSU), in San Diego, California. Dr Stow has been on the Geography Department faculty at SDSU for 28 years. Upon arrival at the university he established a four-course remote sensing curriculum. In 1985, he co-founded the Center for Earth Systems Analysis Research (CESAR) and continues to serve as its primary co-director. CESAR is a thriving GIScience research laboratory that supports upwards of USD2 million in extramurally supported research annually, four technical staff and over 13 graduate students. In total, Dr Stow has served on 19 doctoral committees and 115 master's committees at SDSU, and has served as an invited external committee member for several doctoral students in other institutions

Stow has a distinguished record of funded research that has emphasized the application of multi-temporal remote sensing image analysis for analysing land surface changes and dynamics. Many of these articles are co-authored with his graduate students, who he guides through the peer-review publication process and who normally serve as first author. Stow has twice been on research teams that received the ASPRS Leica Geosystems Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing published in PE&RS. He has regularly presented his research findings at ASPRS and other professional society meetings, and has frequently published in the proceedings of the ASPRS meetings. Some of the intellectual property associated with his research has resulted in several pending patents. In addition, he and a staff researcher have formed a small company through the SDSU Zahn Center (a business incubator) that will offer photogrammetric tools for airborne survey companies.

Stow has made a significant impact on the image of ASPRS by actively working to create a student chapter of ASPRS and active recruitment of student members. He is a very accomplished remote sensing scientist and honored educator with a powerful national and international reputation.