JACIE 2020 Session 3 Presenter Biographies

Steve Labahn has been active in project management and systems engineering on numerous complex remote sensing, digital video, and Information Technology (IT) projects since 1990. Steve began his career with a local Sioux Falls company managing and designing high-end electronic test equipment, implementing Computer-Aided Design (CAD) / Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) / Computer Aided-Engineering (CAE) systems and was the IT Manager before arriving at EROS in 1999. Beginning as a USGS contractor, Steve worked as a Systems Engineer for the Landsat 7 Program prior to launch and into its early operational days. He continued his career as the Project Manager over the Landsat Ground System. In 2007, Steve moved into a USGS civil servant role as the Landsat International Ground Station Network Manager and became the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Manager in 2013. In 2017, Steve took on the role as the acting LSDS Science Information System (LSIS) Manager in addition to these other roles prior to transitioning those responsibilities in 2019. Steve specializes in international strategies and relations as well as program and project management. Education: Steve Labahn has a BS in Electrical Engineering (BSEE) from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, SD, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD.  He has received his Project Management Professional (PMP) certificate from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and earned Senior-level Federal Acquisition Certification in Program and Project Management (FAC-P/PM) from the Federal Acquisition Institute (FAI).

Aparajithan (Ajit) Sampath is a Remote Sensing Calibration engineer for KBR, Contractor to the US Geological Survey's EROS Data Center.  Ajit is also currently a Fellow of System Design and Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and also holds a PhD in Geomatics engineering from Purdue University. Ajit’s interests include system architecture, sensor modeling, error propagation through systems, automated feature extraction, linear and nonlinear optimization.

Nigel Fox is an NPL Fellow in Optical Radiometry and Earth Observation. Nigel joined NPL from University College London in 1981 with a BSc in Astronomy and Physics. Since that time, he has been responsible for the establishment and dissemination of primary optical radiation measurement scales and in particular pioneered the development of techniques such as laser, cryogenic and filter radiometry. These techniques led to an improvement of nearly two orders of magnitude in the accuracy of many radiometric measurements and have been widely adopted by the international metrology community, and also resulted in the award of a PhD from the University of London.  Nigel has published more than 150 papers on a range of topics from primary optical radiation measurements through to climate monitoring, various book chapters and presented widely around the world though invited and other contributions and is a Fellow of the institute of physics. Nigel became an NPL Fellow in 1997 and is currently the science lead for the Earth Observation, Climate and Optical group of NPL and Earth observation in general at NPL as a whole.  He is the NPL/UK representative on international metrology committees related to optical radiation measurement such as BIPM Consultative committee on Radiometry and Photometry (CCPR), its corresponding Euramet Technical Committee and also represents those bodies as a liaison on relevant WMO committees. During his career, he has also managed the resources and personnel of a 20 person research group and been the coordinator of several large EU projects, lead of a variety of ESA projects as well as many other international collaborations spanning not only Europe but also Asia and Americas. Over the last two decades Nigel has expanded his and consequently his groups interests to include Earth Observation and associated climate change parameters, with a particular emphasis on satellite observations. This has led to further innovation in both pre-flight and post-launch calibration and validation techniques and has culminated in the design and leadership of a proposed satellite mission called TRUTHS. The novel mission concept provides fully SI traceable measurements from orbit at uncertainties a factor ten lower than any other, sufficient to make benchmark measurements suitable for the detection of decadal climate change and allows the upgrade in performance of existing satellite sensors. Nigel has championed ‘Earth observation metrology’ on behalf of the World’s metrology community representing the UK on the Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) of the international space agency committee, Committee on Earth Observation satellites (CEOS) and chair of its Infrared, Visible and Optical Sensors (IVOS) sub-group, since 2006. He is a visiting professor in the Meteorology Department of the University of Reading and provides expert advice on QA/Cal/Val to UK government, ESA and various other international organisations on topics related to earth observation and climate.

Dr. Masek is a Research Scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA GSFC. His research interests include satellite-based monitoring forest dynamics, climate-change impacts on terrestrial ecosystems, and remote sensing techniques. In 2015 he was appointed Project Scientist for the Landsat-9 mission, and from 2001-2010 he served as the Deputy Project Scientist for Landsat-8.  He also served as Chief of the Biospheric Sciences Lab from 2014-2019.  Dr. Masek received a B.A. in Geology from Haverford College (1989) and a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from Cornell University (1994) and has held previous research positions with University of Maryland, Hughes Information Systems, and Cornell University.

George Percivall serves as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Engineer of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).  Prior to joining OGC, Mr. Percivall was Chief Engineer with Hughes Aircraft for NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) - Landsat/Terra release.  While with GST,  he was Principal engineer for NASA's Digital Earth Office; and represented NASA in OGC, ISO and CEOS.  He began his career as on the GOES and GMS weather satellites. He holds a BS in Engineering Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois - Urbana.