JACIE 2020 Session 4 Presenter Biographies

Minsu Kim.  Cornell University, PhD. Radiative transfer, Lidar, Hyperspectral, USGS Landsat 8 OLI atmospheric correction, USGS 3DEP lidar accuracy assessment.

Mahesh Shrestha. I received the B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Tribhuvan University, Nepal. Similarly, I received the M.S. and Ph.D. in Image Processing and Geospatial Science and Engineering respectively from South Dakota State University. I am currently working as a Calibration Engineer with the KBR, Inc, contractor to USGS/EROS. My responsibility at EROS includes sensor characterization and calibration research to support ongoing radiometric projects.  My primary interests include intercalibration of different optical satellite sensors, radiometric evaluation of Level 1 and Level 2 satellite products, and to research and develop radiometric calibration algorithms for improving calibration accuracy of optical remote sensing satellite and airborne systems.

Ms. Christa Johnson is a US Army Veteran who served honorably as a Geospatial Intelligence Instructor and an Imagery and Full Motion Video Analyst.  Upon military separation she worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency as an Intelligence Officer in the Defense Counter Intelligence Office until 2010 when she joined the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency as Senior GEOINT Collections and Integrations Officer. She has been with the NGA for more than 10 years, deployed multiple times and has served across the agency in offices focusing on the analysis, collection, dissemination and integration of Geospatial Intelligence data and sensors. She is currently serving within the NGA Office of Sensor Integration’s Image Quality and Utility Division as the Program Lead for Commercial and the NSG Radar Ground programs; leading the test and evaluation of new sensors and products for delivery to the GEOINT Community. 

Dr. Afreen Siddiqi is a Research Scientist in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and an adjunct lecturer of public policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Dr. Siddiqi’s research interests are at the intersection of systems analysis, systems architecture and design, and technology policy. Her work is on complex socio-technical systems such as earth observation systems, and critical infrastructure linked to sustainability (such as systems in water, energy, and transportation domains). In recent work, she collaborated with NASA GSFC in developing tools for distributed space missions design and contributed novel methods for valuing earth observation mission architectures. Dr. Siddiqi has a background in controls and system analysis and worked on developing control and simulation tools at the R&D division at National Instruments in Austin, Texas. She has an S.B. in Mechanical Engineering, an S.M. in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a Ph.D. in Aerospace systems, all from MIT. She received the inaugural Rene H. Miller prize in Systems Engineering for her doctoral research and has co-authored over 90 research publications to date.

Robert Tetrault is the Director of the International Production Assessment Division (IPAD), Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA which publishes the monthly World Agricultural Production. The monthly World Agricultural Production is published in conjunction with USDA’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates and USDA’s Production Supply and Distribution database. Together, these products update the global food, feed and fiber supply and demand information. IPAD’s responsibility is foreign agricultural crop production within USDA’s economic information system. IPAD uses the ‘all source’ methodology using data sources such as FAS’ global network of agricultural attachés, global weather data, soil moisture models and satellite imagery. Earth observation resources for agriculture spans the available resolutions from NASA’s MODIS to Landsat-class to commercial high resolution. IPAD also incorporates radar (SAR), microwave, thermal and altimeter data into our agricultural assessment. Satellite imagery provide reliable, timely, and objective observations; and they are global.  Before managing the IPAD team, Robert was a crop analyst for Brazil and Central America. He has over twenty years’ experience in the application of remote sensing technology to agriculture in both the government and private sector. Robert is local to the Washington DC area and his degree is from the University of Maryland in Botany.