PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
May 2016
313
A N I N T E R V I E W
Alper Yilmaz is Associate Profession of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic
Engineering, and Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
at The Ohio University. Dr. Yilmaz is highly honored and has received
awards from the Ohio State University, IEEE, and many others. He has
been published in over 80 journals and conference proceedings.
When asked when he wanted to be Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Ylimaz noted,
“ASPRS is a very vibrant community with a mission to connect at all levels.
I am very honored to be a part of this mission and to serve as the editor-
in-chief for
PE&RS
. We will take
PE&RS
to new heights by increasing
subscriptions, impact factor, and quality.”
ALPER YILMAZ
What motivated you to become the Editor-in-Chief for
PE&RS
?
My primary motive as I go from midcareer to late career
stage is to serve the community at large. I have been
serving as associate editor for a number of journals in
pattern recognition as well as in imaging fields for a decade
now. These responsibilities brought a lot of experience
that I would like to transfer over to the next generation.
In addition, I would like to improve the overall recognition
and impact factor of
PE&RS.
What are your short- and long-term goals for
PE&RS
?
I have two short term goals; first will be to develop an
online manuscript management system, the second is
forming an editorial board for
PE&RS
. The first of these
goals is already happening. We will soon start using Allen
Press as our management system. Allen Press has been
a choice of well recognized journals in various fields. My
midterm goals are to increase the number of research and
application articles per issue by introducing short and long
articles. I would like to encourage industry professionals
and companies to provide application articles to
PE&RS
while increasing research article contributions from
Europe, South America and Australia.
What would you do to enhance the value of
PE&RS
to
ASPRS members and the geospatial community?
PE&RS
has been a great journal under Dr. Russell
Congalton’s leadership. My goal is to further the
existing image to new heights.
PE&RS
has been losing
contributions from academia and companies outside
the US. I would do my best to facilitate increasing the
number of contributions from South America, Europe and
Australia.
What is your philosophy on the proper role of
PE&RS
within the geospatial profession?
PE&RS
has a very unique role in the Community.
It combines the industry view of the profession with
government and academic views. I will broaden the
contributions from both industry and academia and bring
content that is related to this generations expectations by
introducing interactive content distribution aside from
static articles.
Since ASPRS serves members in private industry, govern-
ment and academia, how do you see
PE&RS
balancing
the needs (some unique and some shared) of these three
areas?
My main responsibility as editor-in-chief lies with its
academic content. However, I will have a proactive role in
the technical content provided in the journal. I believe that
these three members are part of “geosensor-development-
deployment” and “Geoinformatics” themes.
PE&RS
serves
as a venue where each party’s interests will be highlighted.
How do you propose to remain current and aware of
emerging technologies so that
PE&RS
stays relevant and
exciting to readers?
PE&RS
has to take a lead role in emerging technologies
including but not limited to UAS platforms and
autonomous vehicles. We need to publish discussions at
all levels of these technologies from policy making to data
processing.
What immediate changes can be made to
PE&RS
to
improve readership?
The three things of most importance are; an online
management system (from submission to publication),
