JACIE 2020 Session 6 Presenter Biographies

Dr. Stephen J. Schiller a calibration scientist and systems engineer at Raytheon Intelligence and Space (RI&S), El Segundo, CA developing in-flight calibration and validation methods for space-based and airborne imaging systems. Efforts include both on-board and vicarious methods for a wide range of Civil, DOD and commercial earth observing systems.  Recent roles embrace acting as calibration lead for several NASA sponsored Sustained Land Imaging (SLI) programs at Raytheon and providing CalVal consulting support covering a diverse range of remote sensing topics including urban heat island, harmful algae bloom, spectral signature identification, atmospheric corrections and radiometric 3D point cloud research. Key efforts include the development of the vicarious Specular Array Calibration (SPARC) method. With nearly 30 years of experience in remote sensing, he was a co-founder (with Dennis Helder) of the vicarious calibration program at South Dakota State University supporting numerous NASA and USGS remote sensing programs. Stephen received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Calgary, Canada; M.S. degree in Astronomy from Ohio State University and a B.S. degree in Physics from Walla Walla University.

Dr. Brandon Russell received his Doctorate in oceanography from the University of Connecticut, with a focus on marine remote sensing and bio-optics. He has over 10 years’ experience with at-sea collection and analysis of remote sensing data sets, including ground-truthing and validation campaigns for HyspIRI, CORAL, and other projects during graduate and post-doctoral research. He has attended numerous presentations and town-hall meetings for PACE and similar missions and presented research at NASA meetings and the Ocean Optics conference. He is in active collaboration/consultation with other members of the marine remote sensing community.

Dr. Kevin Gallo is a physical scientist with NOAA/NESDIS and is currently a visiting scientist at the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center where he is the lead investigator on several collaborative research efforts related to land-atmosphere interactions. He is the NOAA project lead on the development of the Land Product Characterization System, a web-based system to inter-compare and characterize satellite-derived land products from numerous satellite platforms.

Greg Stensaas has extensive systems engineering and information systems experience; such as;  electro-optical and infrared systems exploitation, development, simulation, and test experience as an electronics engineer and operations research analyst for the U.S. Army and Air Force; principle engineer for the NASA Earth Observing System Distributed Active Archive Center, and was also systems engineer for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat Data Continuity Mission at the Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. Greg has worked at USGS EROS in Sioux Falls, South Dakota for over 23 years and is currently working for the EROS Cal/Val Center of Excellence (ECCOE) and is also working as project manager for a new satellite system. Greg was previous project manager for ECCOE, Requirements Capabilities & Analysis for Earth Observation, and Remote Sensing Technologies projects. He is responsible for understanding user requirements, system and sensor capabilities, and is responsible for calibration and system/product characterization and continues to work many cross-calibration efforts. Greg established digital camera quality assurance process in USGS and American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and lead the development of USGS and ASPRS Lidar Data Quality Guidelines. Greg is a co-chair of the Joint Agency Commercial Imagery Evaluation (JACIE) program.  He has previously served as the ASPRS Primary Data Acquisition Division Director (PDAD), the chair of the Federal Inter-Agency Digital Imagery Working Group (IADIWG), the Chair of the Committee on Earth Observation (CEOS) Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV) and helped establish the Quality Assurance for Earth Observation Strategy for CEOS and the Group on Earth Observation (GEO). Greg is a member of the Technical Management Subcommittee of the National Digital Orthoimagery Program (NDOP).  Education:  Greg Stensaas has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from South Dakota State University and has taken post graduate classes in Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and Dakota State University.