Rector awarded for outstanding contribution to remote sensing
Jón Atli Benediktsson, Rector of the University of Iceland, receives the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Society (GRSS) award 2018 for his outstanding contribution to research in the field of remote sensing.
The award is named after David Landgrebe, one of the principal pioneers in the analysis of remote sensing images, and will be presented at the IEEE Whispers conference organised by GRSS in collaboration with other associations in the field of remote sensing in Amsterdam in September. The awards are presented for outstanding contributions to the analysis of remote sensing images related to classification, image analysis, feature extraction, change detection, data fusion or data mining. To be eligible for the awards candidates must have been pivotal and have performed significant contributions to the analysis of remote sensing images in recent years, and published their results in IEEE GRSS journals or conferences.
Remote sensing involves, for example, taking digital images from planes and satellites and using these to extract data regarding the Earth's surface. Remote sensing is an efficient way to get overviews of large areas that are often remote. Remote sensing plays an important role in Iceland, where remote sensing technology has been used to map and monitor changes in vegetation, glaciers, volcanoes, lakes, and the ocean. Research scientists and students at the University of Iceland have placed great emphasis on research on remote sensing, and on developing new methods in processing remote sensing images. The University of Iceland was last year among the very best universities in the world in the field of remote sensing according to Academic Ranking of World Universities, ShanghaiRanking Consultancy.
"It is a great honour and inspiration to receive the David Landgrebe award. I wish to thank my colleagues and students both within and outside of the University of Iceland for their contribution to the research. Remote sensing data is becoming more and more common but at the same time both more complicated and comprehensive. The research is about extracting information from a large database with methods that are both fast and accurate. Thus the importance of this research is constantly increasing," says Jón Atli Benediktsson.
Jón Atli, who is a professor in electrical and computer engineering, has in his career been extremely prolific in this field and is author of around 400 articles and book chapters in the field of electrical and computer engineering. His work is widely cited and he has been awarded various acknowledgements, both international and domestic. Jón Atli is a Fellow at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and SPIE. He received the Stevan J. Kristof Award (1990), the Young Researcher Award from the Icelandic Research Council (1997), the IEEE Millenium Medal (2000), and Iceland's Electrical Engineer of the Year (award 2014). He has received numerous acknowledgements for scientific articles.
Jón Atli has furthermore been active in innovation; he was one of the entrepreneurs in Oxymap, a novel technology for the assessment of retinal metabolism and structure, and holds three patents.
