Executive

Dr. Ahmed Shaker is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Dr. Shaker has international work experience in Canada, Spain, Hong Kong, Egypt, and Kuwait. His research interests cover the fields of LiDAR data processing, satellite sensor modelling, image segmentation and classification, and 3-D modeling. Dr. Shaker has more than 80 publications in international journals and conferences.
Dr. Shaker is the recipient of the National Science Progress Award in Surveying and Mapping from the Chinese National Congress in 2005, Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship in 2006, Faculty Scholarly, Research and Creative Activity Award, 2011, the Bronze Medal Award from the Canadian Remote Sensing Society in 2011, and Dean’s Teaching Award in 2015. Dr. Shaker is serving in different capacities number of national and international organizations such as CIG and ISPRS. He services as an Executive member of the CRSS-SCT since 2014.

Dr. Piwowar’s research is focussed on the extraction of change information from long time series of remote sensing images. In 1995, he published one of the first papers that introduced the concept of hypertemporal image analysis. Since then, he has been a pioneer in the development of the temporal mixture analysis technique and the application of principal components analysis to image sequences. Using these analysis strategies, he has studied the impacts of climate change on Arctic sea ice and on the native grasslands of the northern Great Plains of North America.

Dr. Piwowar was on the organizing committees for IGARSS 2002 (Toronto) and IGARSS 2014 (Québec), and was the General Conference Chair for the 31^st Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing. He has served as a Guest Editor for special issues of the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing and the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing (JSTARS).

He has been the CRSS-SCT treasurer since 2010.

Raymond is an experienced Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analyst.  His work focuses on facilitating and managing the use and integration of spatial analysis, remote sensing, geospatial data, and the associated methodologies into his client’s projects.

Raymond holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography from Lakehead University, and an advanced Diploma in Geographic Information Systems from the Centre of Geographic Sciences. Raymond has also just graduated with a Master of Environmental Studies degree from Dalhousie University where he completed a thesis on mapping wetlands using multi-beam RADARSAT-2 polarimetric SAR, optical satellite imagery, and elevation data.

Gordon Staples received the M.Sc. degree in ocean physics and the B.Sc. degree in honours physics from the University of British Columbia. He joined MDA in 1993 and is currently Senior Analyst/Project Manager for the Geospatial Group. In this role, he oversees the geospatial services group, manages research projects, develops and delivers radar training, and is active in business development. He has extensive experience in radar polarimetry and the development of radar applications. Gordon has over 80 technical publications and reports, and has delivered over 100 technical presentations and training sessions.

Gordon was the Program Manager for the RADARSAT-2 Science and Operational Applications Research Program. He was the one of the Guest Editors for the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing special issue on RADARSAT-2 and for the special issue on the RADARSAT-2 SOAR program. He was the Exhibits Chair for the IGARSS’14 and the Finance Chair for the 2015 Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing. He served on the Canadian National Committee of the International Radio Science Union (1999-2007) and is a member of the IEEE and the CRSS.

Monique Bernier graduated in Physical Geography (B.Sc., M.Sc.) from the University of Sherbrooke. In 1981, she began her career as an Environmental Scientist at the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing. She earned a Ph.D. in Water Science (1991) from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS). Since 1993, she has been a professor at INRS, Québec City, where her research is mainly oriented towards the development of applications for SAR sensors in hydrology and northern environments monitoring. She supervised or co-supervised 22 Ph.D. and 25 M.Sc. students.

Prof. Bernier is an active member of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society (CRSS), serving on the Board of Directors in the 1980s and from 2002 to 2016. She served as the CRSS President from 2009 to 2014. In the 1990s, she served as President of the Québec Association of Remote Sensing (AQT). She was awarded the 2011 Ferdinand-Bonn Prize by AQT for her career achievements in the development of EO applications and the training of high qualified persons.

She hosted, as General Chair, the joint IGARSS 2014 / 35th Canadian Symposium on Remote Sensing in Québec City. She was an Associate Editor (2008-2015) for the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Earth Observations and Remote Sensing. She is a member of the GRSS Publications Awards Committee (2015-2018). In 2016, she was appointed member of the Earth Science Advisory Committee (ESAC) for the ESA Earth Observation Program.

Md Saifuzzaman (Saif) received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Geography and Environment degree from Jahagairnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh and hold a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Saif joined the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), a Government trust of Bangladesh, as a Remote Sensing and GIS specialist in 2002 and dealt with a wide range of optical sensor data for resource mapping and historical Radarsat data (1996 to 2007) for flood and erosion monitoring in Bangladesh. In 2009, he took a faculty position at the Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh and taught remote sensing for resource management and image processing courses. He worked with Government agencies and NGOs in Bangladesh and was involved in many development projects in the public and private sectors. He is currently enrolled in a graduate program in Bioresource Engineering at McGill University. His research focuses on the integration of remote sensing and proximal soil sensing (PSS) data in precision farming. He can be reached at md.saifuzzaman@mail.mcgill.ca.

Cristina is a research scientist with the Center for Global Sea Level Change (CSLC) at New York University (NYU), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. With a vast expertise in long-term monitoring of Arctic lakes and their ice cover to climate change with spaceborne sensors (mainly synthetic aperture radar), numerical modelling techniques and field-based observations, Cristina’s current research focuses on  investigating the development of supraglacial lakes on Antarctic ice shelves as well as regional sea ice extent variability in the Amundsen/Bellingshausen Seas. She holds a PhD degree in geography and environmental management from University of Waterloo, Canada. Her work on Arctic lake ice earned her several prestigious science awards, including the QEII Graduate Scholarship in Science and Technology and the QEII for Cryospheric Research, as well as international recognition, her published papers being referenced in top peer-reviewed journals. She can be reached at cristina.surdu@nyu.edu or on Twitter at @csurdu_UW.

Martin Bergeron has acted as a Remote-Sensing Analyst within the Optical sensors group at the Canadian Space Agency since 2000. He has been involved in the CSA hyperspectral concept studies from his arrival until 2007. He has since been seconded to positions such as Manager, EO Technologies in 2008 and Program Lead, Atmospheric and Solar Terrestrial Sciences in 2009 and 2010, and as Head, Collaborative research from 2011 to 2012. Now Senior Programs Officer, Planning since 2013, he is leading a Coastal and inland waters hyperspectral imager project. Martin Bergeron holds a Ph.D. in remote-sensing (atmospheric radiative transfer) from the Université de Sherbrooke

Desmond Power is Vice President, Remote Sensing at C-CORE and is based in St. John’s. He is a graduate of Memorial University’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science (1991) and has Master of Engineering (electrical – 1994) in radar systems. Desmond has experience with synthetic aperture radar, optical remote sensing, deformation mapping with interferometry, high frequency (HF), ultra-high frequency (UHF) and microwave radar design, radar performance measurement, and radio frequency design. He has experience in the application of radar polarimetry and electromagnetic backscatter at microwave frequencies. In addition to his membership with CRSS, Desmond is a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Newfoundland and Labrador (PEGNL), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the Canadian Institute of Geomatics.

Dr. Salehi received his PhD in Remote Sensing Engineering from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) in 2012. He is currently a senior remote sensing engineer with C-CORE and a cross-appointed professor to the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Memorial University. Prior to his current position Dr. Salehi was a NSERC post-doctoral visiting fellow in Canadian Government Laboratories at Earth Observation, Science and Technology Branch of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada in Ottawa. Dr. Salehi has over 13 years of academic and industrial R&D experience in remote sensing, geomatics, and photogrammetry with specialisation in very high resolution optical, hyperspectral, and polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data algorithm and application development. Dr. Salehi is the author of more than 50 peer-reviewed journal papers, book chapters, and refereed conference papers. He is a guest editor for the Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, a new editorial board member of Journal of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering and has served as the reviewer for more than 20 journals and conference proceedings.

Charles Gignac is a specialist in remote sensing and geomatics at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique – Centre Eau Terre Environnement (INRS-ETE) in Quebec City. After obtaining a technical diploma in Geomatics from CEGEP Limoilou and a Bachelor’s degree in Geomatics applied to the environment from the University of Sherbrooke, he joined the team of the TENOR laboratory (Research team in environmental and northern remote sensing) of the INRS-ETE, to complete his master’s and doctoral studies. He specializes in remote sensing of sea ice with radar and visible data, frequency analysis and modeling, web mapping and scientific programming. He currently serves as president of the Quebec Remote Sensing Association, where he has been a member of the Board since 2008, as a geospatial contractor and general manager of Go-Explo, NPO focused on the development of the St. Lawrence River.