I was honored last week to be a presenter at the AmericaView Winter Business Meeting, in Reston Virginia, as representative of the CaliforniaView section of this nationwide consortium of remote sensing scientists.  AmericaView shares many of the same interests as the IGIS program, such as applied remote sensing research, outreach, education, workforce development and technology transfer.  At this particular meeting of over 50 remote sensing experts, I spoke about some of the ways that the University of California is using drones to advance environmental and agricultural research; including the use of automated photogrammetry for elevation modeling, thermal imagery for water use efficiency, multispectral cameras for monitoring post-fire vegetation recovery, Lidar for tree structure modeling, and hyperspectral scanners for invasive pest detection.

While my presentation and participation at the AmericaView meeting went very well, the highlight of my trip was being invited to Capitol Hill to meet with California Congressman Ami Bera, and staffers for Senator Diane Feinstein and Congressman Paul Cook.  The objective of these meetings was to advance awareness for the importance of remote sensing resources, such as the USGS's provision of data from the Landsat satellite missions.  In particular, our meeting with Dr. Ami Bera went fantastic.  He is such a great and knowledgeable supporter of the scientific outreach we at the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources undertake, and understands the importance supporting the scientific infrastructure that many of us rely on for our research and educational efforts.

Left to right – Pia Van Benthem, Dr. Ami Bera, myself, and Dr. Susan Ustin