Keynote Speakers
Title: Spatial Lenses to view and analyze Big Data
Werner KuhnDirector, Center for Spatial Studies
Professor, Department of Geography
Jack and Laura
Dangermond Chair
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Werner Kuhn holds the Jack and Laura Dangermond Endowed Chair and is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is also the director of the Center for Spatial Studies at UCSB. His main research and teaching goal is to enable transdisciplinary research through spatial information and computing. Before joining UCSB in 2013, Kuhn was a professor of Geoinformatics at the University of Munster, Germany, where he led MUSIL, an interdisciplinary semantic interoperability research lab (musil.uni-muenster.de). He holds a doctorate from ETH Zurich in Surveying Engineering and was a post-doctoral researcher with the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (1989-1991) as well as with the Vienna University of Technology (1991-1996). He is a co-founder of the COSIT Conference Series (since 1993) and of the Vespucci Initiative (vespucci.org), since 2003.
Title: Searching for patterns in EO data using information theory
Abstract: In order to leverage computational complexity and avoid information losses, “big data” analysis requires a new class of algorithms and methods to be designed and implemented. In this sense, information theory-based techniques can play a key role to effectively unveil change and anomaly patterns within big data sets. A framework that aims at detecting the anomaly patterns of a given dataset is introduced. The proposed method, namely PROMODE, relies on a representation of the given dataset performed by means of undirected bipartite graphs. Then the anomalies are searched and detected by progressively spanning the graph. The proposed architecture delivers a computational load that is less than that carried by typical frameworks in literature, so that PROMODE can be considered as a valid algorithm for efficient detection of change patterns in remotely sensed big data
Paolo GambaProfessor
University of Pavia, Italy
Paolo Gamba (SM’00, F’13) is Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Pavia,
Italy, where he leads the Telecommunications and Remote Sensing Laboratory and serves as
Deputy Coordinator of the Ph.D. School in Electronics and Computer Science. He received the
Laurea degree in Electronic Engineering “cum laude” from the University of Pavia, Italy, in
1989, and the Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the same University in 1993.
He served as Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters from 2009 to
2013, and as Chair of the Data Fusion Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Society from October 2005 to May 2009. Currently, he serves as GRSS Executive Vice
President.
He has been the organizer and Technical Chair of the biennial GRSS/ISPRS Joint Workshops on
“Remote Sensing and Data Fusion over Urban Areas” from 2001 to 2015. He also served as
Technical Co-Chair of the 2010 and 2015 IGARSS conferences, in Honolulu (Hawaii), and Milan
(Italy), respectively.
He has been the Guest Editor of special issues of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote
Sensing, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Remote Sensing Applications, ISPRS Journal of
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, International Journal of Information Fusion and Pattern
Recognition Letters on the topics of Urban Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing for Disaster
Management, Pattern Recognition in Remote Sensing Applications.
He has been invited to give keynote lectures and tutorials in several occasions about urban
remote sensing, data fusion, EO data for physical exposure and risk management. He published
more than 140 papers in international peer-review journals and presented nearly 300 research
works in workshops and conferences.
Title: Geospatial bigdata enabled automation of agricultural decision making
Liping DiProfessor, the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University,
Fairfax, VA
Director, the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS) at George Mason
University
Prof. Liping Di is the founding director of the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (CSISS), a university research center at George Mason University. He is also a professor of the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Dr. Di received his Ph.D. degree in remote sensing/GIS (geography) from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1991. He has engaged in geoinformation science research for more than 30 years and has published over 400 publications. He has received as the principal investigator (PI) more than $55 million research grants from U.S. federal agencies and international organizations. His current research activities are mainly in the following areas: geospatial information standards, geospatial cyberinfrastructure, web-based geospatial information and knowledge systems, and geoinformation science applications, particularly in agriculture. From 2010-2016, Prof. Di was the chair of INCITS/L1, the U.S. national committee responsible for setting U.S. national standards on geographic information and representing the U.S. at ISO Technical Committee 211 (ISO TC 211). He also was the elected chair of Data Archive and Distribution Technical Committee (which has been renamed Earth Science Informatics Technical Committee) of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society from 2005-2009. Dr. Di has won many prestigious awards, such as Merit Award from InterNational Committee on Information Technology Standards, Honor Award from the Secretary of U. S. Department of Agriculture, and R&D Award from R&D Magazine.
Title: Innovation and Standards for Big Geo Data
Trevor TaylorOpen Geospatial Consortium
Mr. Trevor Taylor, currently responsible for Services for Asia and the Americas for the Open Geospatial Consortium, has over twenty-five years of experience in the international Earth Observation community in the public , private and not for profit sectors. With a background in Geography ( Carleton University, Canada) , Mr. Taylor has significant experience in a wide variety of land related projects, included but not limited to Agriculture, Environment, Mapping, Land Use and of course, relevant Geospatial Standards. Mr. Taylor has extensive international experience, including work completed in Latin America, Asia, Europe and North America.