PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
June 2017
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(L-r) Alan Stevens, Karen Schuckman, Charles Toth, Lewis Graham, and
Qassim Abdullah.
For 20 years of extraordinary service as the ASPRS Awards
Committee Chair.
Purpose:
Established in 1991, The Outstanding Service
Award is given to Society members in recognition of out-
standing and unusual efforts in helping ASPRS develop and
carry out its program over a sustained period. Recipients
have performed outstanding service at the chapter, regional,
or national level. Awardees’ service includes any activities,
including professional, that have helped the Society achieve
its goals and objectives.
Donor
: The ASPRS Foundation
The Outstanding Service Award consists of a bronze plaque.
Robert N. Colwell Memorial Fellowship
Chunyuan Diao
Chunyuan Diao is completing a PhD degree in Geography
at the University at Buffalo, New York. The broad goal of
her research is to create remote sensing-driven monitoring
frameworks to understand the interactions among land cover
dynamics, hydrologic regimes, climate changes, and human
activities. She has developed new methods such as temporal
partial unmixing and multi-year spectral angle clustering to
characterize the intra- and inter-annual phenology of saltce-
dar, an important invasive species in the western US, using
Landsat time series data sets acquired over a 36-year peri-
od. Her research is among the first published studies to com-
prehensively investigate how the phenology of plant species
should be characterized using satellite data with limited tem-
poral resolution. These results have important implications
for the effective management of invasive species, especially
for inferring the stage of invasion over time and for guiding
the restoration of riparian ecosystems.
Diao is also a capable teacher and mentor. She has con-
sistently received excellent reviews as an independent under-
graduate instructor and as a teaching assistant for several
remote sensing and GIS courses. She has already published
extensively in top-tier remote sensing journals. After receiv-
ing her PhD degree, Diao plans to continue remote sensing
research and teaching in a university setting. Among her
many research interests, she hopes to combine in-situ mea-
surements, climate models, and time series remotely sensed
data to study the phenological dynamics of vegetated eco-
systems at multiple spatial scales, and explore how climate
change affects terrestrial ecosystems.
Over the course of more than a half century, Dr. Robert N. Col-
well developed a reputation as one of the world’s most respect-
ed leaders in remote sensing, a field that he stewarded from
the interpretation of aerial photographs during World War
II, to the advanced acquisition and analysis of many types of
geospatial data from military and civilian satellite platforms.
His career included nearly 40 years of teaching and research
at the University of California, Berkeley, a distinguished re-
cord of military service reaching the rank of Rear Admiral,
and prominent roles in private industry and as a consultant
for many U.S. and international agencies. Among the many
awards bestowed upon him, Dr. Colwell had the distinction of
being one of the 25 Honorary Members of ASPRS.
Purpose:
Established in 2006 to encourage and commend
college/university graduate students or post-doctoral re-
searchers who display exceptional interest, desire, ability,
and aptitude in the field of remote sensing or other related
geospatial information technologies, and who have a special
interest in developing practical uses of these technologies.
Donor
: The ASPRS Foundation, from funds donated by stu-
dents, associates, colleagues and friends of Robert N. Colwell.
The Award consists of a grant of $6,500 and a one-year stu-
dent or associate membership (new or renewal) in ASPRS.
Francis H. Moffitt Memorial Scholarship
Kyle Mischler
Kyle Mischler is an undergraduate at Michigan Technolog-
ical University seeking a BS in Engineering with emphasis
on Geospatial Engineering. His minor pursuits are Surveying
and Electrical Engineering. He has a cumulative GPA of 3.95
through his junior year. Mischler is highly recommended by
his faculty advisors. His studies have included surveying and
(L-r) Chunyuan Diao and Charles Toth.
Yearbook
Awards & Scholarships
