Boards

Chair

Liping Di
George Mason University, USA

Liping Di received the Ph.D. degree in remote sensing/GIS (geography) from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, USA, in 1991. He is the Founding Director for the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, a university research center at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. He is also a Professor with the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science, George Mason University. He has engaged in geoinformatics and remote sensing research for more than 30 years and has authored or coauthored more than 450 publications. He has been the Principal Investigator (PI) for more than $60 million in research grants/contracts awarded by the U.S. federal agencies and international organizations. He found the annual International Conference on Agro-geoinformatics in 2012. His current research interests include geospatial information standards, geospatial cyberinfrastructure, web-based geospatial information and knowledge systems, and geospatial science applications, particularly in agriculture. Dr. Di has actively participated in the activities of a number of professional societies and international organizations, such as the IEEE GRSS, ISPRS, CEOS, ISO TC 211, OGC, INCITS, and GEO. He was the Co-Chair for the Data Archiving and Distribution Technical Committee of the IEEE GRSS from 2002 to 2005 and the Chair from 2005 to 2009, and the Chair for INCITS/L1, the U.S. national committee responsible for setting the U.S. national standards on geographic information and representing the U.S. at ISO Technical Committee 211 (ISO TC 211) from 2010 to 2016. Currently, he is the convenor of ISO TC 211 Working Group 9 – Information Management.


Members

Zhongxin Chen
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Dr. Zhongxin Chen got his BSc degree in Geography from Peking University in 1991, MSc and PhD degrees in Botany (Ecology) from Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1994 and 1998 respectively.
He is Senior Information Technology Officer at Information Technology Division in FAO. His main work is using geospatial information technology supporting digital innovation in agriculture at the organization. Before joining FAO, he was a research professor at Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning (IARRP), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science. He was the director of Department of Remote Sensing and Digital Agriculture at IARRP. He was honored ‘National Outstanding Agronomist’ in 2015. His main research interests include agricultural remote sensing, geo-spatial modeling in agriculture, quantitative remote sensing and data assimilation, agricultural information system development and standardization, and so on. He has been PI for more than 50 national, ministerial and international scientific research projects. He has published more than 200 papers, books, book chapters, and reports. He has been granted with 3 national sci-tech advancement awards by the Chinese central government.


Vladimir Crnojevic
BioSense Institute, Serbia

Prof. Vladimir Crnojević is the founder and director of BioSense Institute – Research and Development Institute for Information Technology in Bio Systems. Institute focuses on R&D in various fields: from micro and nanotechnology sensors, through Internet of Things, agrirobotics, satellite imaging and remote sensing, to big data, bioinformatics, machine learning and artificial intelligence, with special interest on applications in agrifood and environmental sectors.

Prof. Crnojević is a Full Professor in Computer Sciences at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia with expertise in image processing and machine learning. He studied Electrical Engineering and obtained his PhD in Image Processing in 2004, when he entered the field of artificial intelligence thus becoming one of the pioneers in this field in Serbia. He acted as Director of Electrical Engineering Department at the Faculty of technical sciences, University of Novi Sad from 2012-2015, and in 2015 founded the BioSense Institute with the idea to support digital transformation of bio sectors through multidisciplinary research and innovation.

Under his leadership BioSense Institute grew from 12 to 130 employees (40+ PhD holders) in only 6 years and became recognized as a regional leader in digital transformation of agriculture with more than 100 various projects implemented. Among 170 emerging centres of excellence in EU within Horizon 2020 programme BioSense Institute has been ranked No.1 and remains constantly among top 10 institutions in Eastern Europe with respect to participation in EU R&D projects.

Apart from research activities BioSense Institute has growing industrial collaboration with various companies in AgriTech and FinTech domains. Also, a number of successful products in digital transformation of agriculture has been developed for different public sector institutions. During its growth BioSense Institute has deployed a number of accelerator programmes through which more than 200 innovative SMEs in AgTech were funded to develop innovative products. In addition, BioSense supports creation of spin-off companies from the institute thus making it possible for research ideas to became real products.

During his carrer Prof. Crnojevic served as a member of various expert bodies like the member of Strategic Programming committee of European Commission for 7 years and the member of natioal scientific board for electrical engineering field. Vladimir’s current research interests include machine learning, image processing, remote sensing, big data and IoT with application in agrifood and biosystems, with constant effort to apply the results in concrete solutions for the industry, thus boosting the digital transformation and innovation in Serbia.


Feng Gao
USDA Agricultural Research Service, USA

Dr. Feng Gao is a Research Physical Scientist at the USDA-ARS Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory in Beltsville, MD and a member of the Landsat Science Team. Dr. Gao’s research includes crop condition monitoring through fusing high temporal and high spatial remote sensing data, land cover and land use change detection using dense time-series data integrated from multiple sensors, surface reflectance anisotropy (bi-directional reflectance distribution function) modeling and correction, and surface biophysical parameters retrieval from remote sensing data.

Dr. Gao is internationally acclaimed for his development of multiple high-impact remote sensing algorithms and tools that have advanced research related to the scaling of hydrologic states and fluxes, and land-atmosphere processes, as well as operational monitoring and decision tools for agriculture. For his expertise and contributions, he has been selected to serve on two key NASA/USGS satellite science teams (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer-MODIS and Landsat) for five collective terms. Dr. Gao is internationally recognized as a leading expert on remote sensing data fusion, which facilitates daily mapping of land-surface conditions at fine spatial scales and is capable of monitoring individual agricultural fields by fusing information from multiple satellites. His novel techniques for integrating satellite remote sensing date from NASA, USGS, NOAA and the European Space Agency into useful and robust date products have been adopted by state-of-the-art land surface models and have had immediate and significant impact on improving agricultural modeling and monitoring.


Liying Guo
George Mason University, USA

Prof. Liying Guo received the Ph.D. degree in Cartography and GIS from Shaanxi Normal University and the post-doctoral training from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Currently Dr. Guo is a research associate professor at the Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA. She has engaged in geospatial information research for more than 20 years. Her research interests include geospatial science applications, food security and sustainable development, and land use and land cover changes in agriculture. She has actively participated in the activities of IEEE GRSS, ISO TC211, and OGC, and severed as PI and Co-PI on multiple federal and national research grants.


Jingfeng Huang
Zhejiang University, China

Dr. Jingfeng Huang got his BSc and MSc degrees in Applied Meteorology from Nanjing Institute of Meteorology in 1985 and 1990 respectively, PhD degree in Soil Science (Remote Sensing) from Zhejiang University in 2000.

Dr Huang is a Professor in College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University. He has engaged in agricultural remote sensing and informatics research for more than 30 years. He has been PI for more than 60 national, provincial, ministerial and international scientific research projects. He also has authored or coauthored more than 300 publications. He has been granted with 2 national sci-tech advancement awards by the Chinese central government. He has supervised 38 MSc students and 39 PhD students.


Li Lin
George Mason University, USA

Li Lin is a Research Assistant Professor at the Center for Spatial Information Science and System (CSISS), George Mason University. He received his BSc. in geography from Ohio University, and Ph.D. in Earth Systems and Geoinformation Sciences from George Mason University. His research interests include urban studies, natural hazards, agro-geoinformatics, geospatial metadata, and catalogue federation. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles in journals and conference proceedings, and served as peer-reviewers in several academic journals. He was the recipient for several fellowships and awards, including the Best Paper in Agro-Geoinformatics 2017 Student Paper Competition, Top 20 Candidates in “Hexagon IGNITE Challenge” at Hexagon Geospatial, Regina L. Bloemer Scholarship in Geography, and Scholarships for U.S.-Sino Agro-geoinformatics summer schools.


Faisal Qamer
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

Faisal Mueen Qamer is leading group on Food Security and Climate Services at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), with focus on developing Earth Observation based solution and services in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. He is responsible for framing geospatial information based approaches to support decision making and policy formulation related to agriculture and food security. His work spans across ICIMOD’s eight regional member countries, with special emphasis in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan. He is strong believer in the effectiveness of partnerships, coordination at country, regional and international levels for effective and sustained development programs. Faisal has proven records of translating global science-based knowledge for regional and local solutions through coordinating strategic partnerships with NASA-affiliated center and US universities under the NASA Applied Science Team umbrella. His work also focusses on climate change including the climate risk preparedness, promoting the use of EO data to reach the UN SDG’s, and represents Hindu Kush Himalayan region in the global community of practices on these issues. He previously worked at the WWF-Pakistan as head of the GIS Department where he worked on the Geo-information management of institution’s four thematic areas including Forests, Freshwater, Species and Climate Change.


Bedir Tekinerdogan
Wageningen University, Neterlands

Prof. Bedir Tekinerdogan is full professor and chairholder of the Information Technology group at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. His current research at Wageningen University concerns smart system of systems engineering, with an emphasis on software engineering, artificial intelligence, and information technology. He has more than 25 years of experience in information technology and software/systems engineering. He is the author of more than 350 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 6 edited books. He has been active in dozens of national and international research and consultancy projects with various large software companies, whereby he has worked as a principal researcher and leading software/system architect in different domains such as consumer electronics, enterprise systems, automotive systems, critical infrastructures, cyber-physical systems, satellite systems, defense systems, production line systems, command and control systems, physical protection systems, radar systems, smart metering systems, energy systems, and precision farming. His research is focused on a systemic, and interdisciplinary approach to solve real industrial problems. With this, he has ample experience in software and systems architecting, software and systems product line engineering, cyber-physical systems, model-driven software engineering, aspect-oriented software engineering, global software development, systems engineering, system of systems engineering, data science, and artificial intelligence. All of these topics, he is also actively teaching. He has developed and taught around 20 different academic courses and has provided software/systems engineering courses to more than 50 companies in The Netherlands, Germany, India, and Turkey. He has graduated more than 70 MSc students and supervised more than 20 PhD students.


Jiali SHANG
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canada

Prof. Jiali Shang is a research scientist at the Ottawa Research and Development Centre (ORDC), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) of the Canadian Federal Government. She is also adjunct professor of two Canadian Universities, York University and Nipissing University. She received her Bsc. in geography in 1984 from Beijing Normal University, China, M.A. in Geography in 1996 from University of Windsor, and Ph.D. in 2005 in Environmental Remote Sensing from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her research focuses on the methodology development and application of Earth Observation (EO) and sensor technology to vegetation biophysical parameter retrieval, crop growth monitoring and modeling, precision farming, detection of field operation activities related to crop production using both optical and radar data, and assessment of soil nutrient runoff. She has authored/co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal publications and book chapters. In addition to research, Dr. Shang is also actively involved in student education, postdoc supervision, international scientific collaboration, and capacity building. She is currently serving as president of the Economics Community under International Society of Precision Agriculture. She is the Canadian representative serving in the Capacity Development Working Group (CD-WG) of International GEO under the United Nations facilitating GEO’s efforts on capacity development, promoting the principle of co-creation and providing support to the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of capacity development activities to fully use open EO data and tools. She is also a working member of the UN Open GIS Initiative.


Berk Ustundag
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Prof. B.Berk Ustundag is the Director of National Software Certification Center in Istanbul Technical University (ITU) and the founding director of Agricultural and Environmental Research and Application Center. He is also a Professor with the Computer Engineering Department, Faculty of Computer and Informatics at ITU. He has more than 180 scientific and technical publications where 105 of them are in the field of agricultural information and automation systems, monitoring and management of crop growth, machine learning applications in agriculture, observation systems and remote sensing for agricultural resource management. He has served as scientific and technical advisor to ministers and governmental institutions for more than 10 years and led scientific projects with the total grant amount USD 110Million by having more than 20 patent applications. He has also been in more than 40 industrial projects about automation systems, process management, sensory mechanisms and the intelligent systems. His research fields and experience include, agro-informatics, signal processing, artificial intelligence, cognitive systems, data processing, Earth observation systems, forecast, decision support systems, embedded system design,  risk assessment and global optimization.


Ruixin Yang
George Mason University, USA

Prof. Ruixin Yang is Associate Professor of Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science in College of Science at GMU. His research areas ranged from fluid dynamics, to astrophysics and general relativity, to data sciences, and then to data information systems, data analysis, and earth systems science. In recent years, He led a software developer team in developing several prototypes for geoinformation systems for supporting online data search, access, and analysis. His current research interest includes Earth system science, and advanced data analysis techniques, data mining for intensity prediction of tropical cyclones, and governmental agriculture data integration and analysis. He has been the PI for several projects sponsored by the USDA on commodity data processing and integration, farm income and wealth data and model support, dissemination of global food security and model, etc. He received his PhD in Aerospace Engineering from University of Southern California.


Zhengwei Yang
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, USA

Bio not available.