IGARSS 2008
General Co-Chair
IGARSS 2008
General Co-Chair
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| John Kerekes IGARSS 2008 General Co-Chair | Eric Miller IGARSS 2008 General Co-Chair |
We are pleased to welcome you to Boston for IGARSS 2008, the 28th annual symposium for GRSS! IGARSS 2008 continues the excellent tradition of gathering world-class scientists, engineers and educators engaged in the fields of geoscience and remote sensing to meet and present their latest activities. Truly an international event, over fifteen hundred participants from all over the world will enjoy a week of technical sessions, tutorials, exhibits and social activities.
We are especially excited to be hosting IGARSS’08 in Boston, a city steeped in American tradition that also is defining the future with its world-class research universities, labs and diverse industry. IGARSS’08 is taking place in the Hynes Convention Center with the host hotel, the Sheraton Boston, located adjacent to the meeting space. In addition to the many fine restaurants and shopping in the immediate vicinity of the Sheraton, you will be only a short walk from many Boston attractions including Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Boston Commons, and historic Fenway Park. An easy ride on America’s first subway system will deliver you to Cambridge, home to Harvard and MIT. Perhaps you were able to join in the Independence Day 4th of July celebrations which occurred just prior to IGARSS’08 and included a Boston Pops concert and fireworks exhibition on the Charles River Esplanade.
Our Technical Program Co-Chairs, Dara Entekhabi and Steve Reising, have led the coordination of a vibrant technical program encompassing traditional IGARSS topics as well as reflecting the timely theme of the 2008 symposium, “Geoscience and Remote Sensing: The Next Generation.” This theme was selected to emphasize the opportunities for the next generation of remote sensing researchers and innovators specifically in the context of our next-generation challenges and global responsibilities to map, measure and monitor the Earth’s environment. In this regard, we have arranged a number of special sessions and other unique opportunities for participation at IGARSS by students and educators. At IGARSS’08 we also turn our collective attention to the next generation of multi-disciplinary challenges highlighting the future of remote sensing as a discipline that is integral to fields as diverse as meteorology, geography, urban planning, oceanography, water resources and geophysics. We are especially excited to have our three plenary speakers, Drs. Susan Avery, Michael Frielich and Berrien Moore kick off IGARSS’08 with their insights and collective wisdom on these important issues. This discussion will continue throughout the week in a number of panel and special sessions led by prominent members of those communities to help build the cross-disciplinary relationships needed to address the many challenging problems facing our world in which remote sensing, geoscience and related disciplines play key roles.
As we look forward to an exciting week of activities, we would like to thank all the volunteers on our Local Organizing Committee, the members of our Technical Program Committee and the hundreds of reviewers who have helped shape IGARSS’08. Finally, we would especially like to thank Billene Mercer and her staff at Conference Management Services, Inc. for their outstanding dedication and skill in arranging the myriad details necessary for the successful management of IGARSS’08.
John Kerekes and Eric Miller