The Steering Committee

The running and development of the Facility is overseen by the FSF Steering Committee. This is a panel of six people comprising the Facility Director, a representative of NERC Scientific Services (NSS), and four experts from the UK remote sensing community, whose details are presented below. Among other things the Steering Committee exist to review applications for use of Facility equipment, to monitor output from the Facility (research, reports, software products), and to provide advice to the Director of NERC Services and Facilities on all aspects of the operation of the Facility.

Name: Prof. Martin Wooster
Role: Chairman of FSFSC
Information: Martin Wooster works primarily in the area of environmental Earth Observation (EO) at Kings College London, with specific interest in thermal remote sensing. Prior to his appointment at KCL, Martin worked at the the Natural Resources Institute (NRI), formerly an executive agency of the UK Overseas Development Administration (now DFID), where his research aimed to improve environmental monitoring and renewable natural resource applications of remote sensing in developing countries. His remote sensing research has focused on three areas where temperature is an important controlling parameter or a useful signifier of change. Such areas include the use of remote sensing for tracking the surface thermal changes associated with volcanic activity variations, using remote sensing to monitor emissions from vegetation fires and measuring surface temperatures of East African rift valley lakes using daily data from EO satellites to monitor and predict lake water mixing events.

Name: Andrew Wilson
Role: Member of FSFSC
Information: Andrew Wilson is Head of the Underpinning Technologies Group, in the Section for Earth Observation, at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH Monks Wood), and has over 21 years experience in optical remote sensing. His expertise covers optical and airborne remote sensing and especially the areas of sensor calibration, atmospheric and geometric correction, navigation systems, and instrumentation design. He led the technical design requirements for the NERC Airborne Remote Sensing Facility's Integrated Data System (IDS), which can deliver high quality, spatially referenced multi- and hyper-spectral data to the environmental user community. He is currently implementing an operational atmospheric correction scheme to generate geophysical data products, such as surface reflectance and temperature, from ARSF data. His other interests include the development of novel instrumentation to characterise atmospheric aerosols and to remotely sense greenhouse gas concentrations using hyperspectral SWIR and TIR airborne sensors. He has been a full and ex-officio member of the ARSF Steering Committee (ARSFSC) since 1991 and has just completed a four-year term as member of the Geophysical Equipment Facility Steering Committee (GEFSC).

Name: Dr Graham Ferrier
Role: Member of FSFSC
Information: Graham Ferrier is a senior lecturer in earth observation science at the University of Hull. Previously he worked at the NERC Environment Systems Science Centre (ESSC) at the University of Reading. His research has concentrated on the monitoring and modelling of the effects of pollution on the natural environment focusing particularly on the utility of high spatial and spectral remote sensing data. The principal areas of current research include mapping estuarine and coastal hydrodynamic and environmental processes, monitoring landfill leachate dispersion, and mapping the environmental effects of abandoned mines.

Name: Dr Julia McMorrow
Role: Member of FSFSC
Information: Julia McMorrow is a senior lecturer in Remote Sensing at the University of Manchester. Her specialist research area is the use of airborne hyperspectral data for the study of peatland environments. This is specifically in relation to peatland restoration, the analysis of upland peat erosion and composition, and the spatial analysis and management of moorland wildfire risks. Within her field of terrestrial remote sensing, she has other research interests in SE Asia in relation to land use and land cover change in tropical forests, and the use of remote sensing for precision agriculture in tropical plantations. She also has research interests in enquiry based learning and virtual fieldwork.

Name: Dr Tim Malthus
Role: Director of FSF
Information: Tim Malthus is senior lecturer in remote sensing at the University of Edinburgh. As well as being Director of the Field Spectroscopy Facility, he is also co-director of the MSc in Geographical Information Science. His research interests lie in the applications of high spectral and high spatial resolution optical remote sensing techniques. Principal application areas of interest are in vegetation biophysical properties and monitoring change in semi-natural vegetation, inland and coastal water quality and mapping intertidal and subtidal coastal habitats.