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To foster an understanding of remote sensing science. Emphasis is placed on developing a meaningful dialogue among geographers interested in understanding and applying remote sensing technology in research, instruction, public service, and private enterprise.

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John Jensen Distinguished Lecture

Qihao Weng, an IEEE Fellow, is the Director of the Center for Urban and Environmental Change and a Professor of Geography at Indiana State University. He received his Ph.D. degree in geography from the University of Georgia in 1999 and previously held appointment as a Senior Fellow at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 2008 to 2009. Weng is currently the Lead of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Global Urban Observation and Information Initiative and an Editor-in-Chief of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Additionally, he serves as the Series Editor of both the Taylor & Francis Series in Remote Sensing Applications and the Taylor & Francis Series in Imaging Science. Weng has been the Organizer and Program Committee Chair of the biennial IEEE/ISPRS/GEO-sponsored “International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications” conference series since 2008. Furthermore, Weng served as a National Director of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing from 2007 to 2010 and a panelist of the U.S. DOE’s Cool Roofs Roadmap and Strategy in 2010.

In 2008, Weng received a prestigious NASA senior fellowship. He received the Outstanding Contributions Award in Remote Sensing in 2011 and the Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award in 2015 for his outstanding contributions to geography, both from the American Association of Geographers. Furthermore, in 2019, he received a Taylor & Francis Lifetime Achievements Award and a fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under the “JSPS Invitational Fellowships for Research in Japan (Short-term S)”. In 2005, at Indiana State University, he was selected as a Lilly Foundation Faculty Fellow; moreover, in the following year, he also received the Theodore Dreiser Distinguished Research Award. In addition, he was the recipient of the 2010 ERDAS Award for the Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing (1st place) and the 1999 Robert E. Altenhofen Memorial Scholarship Award, both of which were awarded by the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He was also awarded the Best Student-Authored Paper Award by the International Geographic Information Foundation in 1998. Aside from these professional accolades, Weng has been invited to give more than 110 talks by organizations and conferences held in U.S.A., Canada, France, China, Spain, Brazil, Greece, UAE, and Hong Kong, and he is honored with a distinguished/chair/honor/guest professorship at twelve of the top universities in China, including the number 1 ranked university—Peking University. In 2018, Weng was elected as a fellow of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and a member of the EU Academy of Sciences.

Weng’s research focuses on remote sensing applications to urban environmental and ecological systems, land-use and land-cover changes, urbanization impacts, environmental modeling, and human-environment interactions. Through the serial invention of innovative algorithms, techniques, methods and theories, Weng’s research efforts have fostered growth in the geographical and environmental applications of the science and technology of remote sensing and satellite imaging. Moreover, his research narrows the gap between geography, geosciences, and landscape ecology, uniting these related fields to design holistic solutions to many environmental, ecological, and climatic issues. During his research career, Weng has been the author of 235 articles (journal articles, chapters, and others) and 14 books. According to Google Scholar, as of August 2019, he has been cited more than 16,700 times (H-index of 59), and 39 of his publications have more than 100 citations each. Weng’s research has been supported by funding agencies that include the NSF, NASA, USGS, USAID, NOAA, National Geographic Society, European Space Agency, Microsoft, and Indiana Department of Natural Resources.