The GRS-S established the Interactive Session Prize Paper Award to recognize the author(s) who posted at the GRS-S Symposium (IGARSS) an exceptional paper in terms of content and impact on the GRS-S. In selecting the paper, other factors considered are originality, clarity and timeliness of the paper. The published versions of the papers in the Digest shall also be evaluated. Prize: Certificate and $1250, equally divided between the authors.

The 2009 Interactive Session Prize Paper Award is presented to Christian Melsheimer, Georg Heygster, and Leif Toudal Pedersen with the citation:

For a paper with exceptional merit and posted in the Interactive Session of the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS’08 “Integrated Retrieval of Surface and Atmospheric Parameters over the Arctic from AMSR-E Satellite Microwave Radiometer Data Using Inverse Methods , and coauthored by Christian Melsheimer, Georg Heygster, and Leif Toudal Pedersen, and presented at the 2008 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, July 2008 in Boston, MA, USA, IGARSS’08 Proceedings.

Roland Romeiser (right) receives the Interactive Session Prize Paper Award on behalf of Christian Melsheimer, Georg Heygster and Leif Toudal Pedersen, from GRS-S President Tony Milne.

Christian Melsheimer was born in Kamen, Germany, in 1967. He received his Diplom-Physiker degree from the University of Dortmund, Germany, in 1994, and his Ph.D. degree from the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 1998. From 1995 to 1998, he was with the Institute of Oceanography, University of Hamburg, and from 1999 to 2002, with the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing, and Processing (CRISP), National University of Singapore. Since 2002, he has been with the Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen. His research interests include microwave remote sensing of atmosphere, sea and land, with special emphasis on the polar regions.

Georg Heygster received the diploma degree in 1976 in solid state physics and the Ph.D. in 1979 in digital image processing both in physics from the University of Goettingen, Germany. He served as a consultant at the Computer Center of the University of Bremen, Germany, from 1979 to 1988. Since 1989, he has been head of the group Geophysical Analysis of Satellite Images at the Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Bremen. His research activities include passive and active microwave remote sensing, especially of both surface and atmospheric parameters in the high latitudes, various aspects of the hydrological cycle, long-term trends and retrieval techniques.

Leif Toudal Pedersen received his Master degree in microwave engineering from the Technical University in Denmark (DTU) in 1982 and the Ph.D. on microwave remote sensing from satellite in 1991. Through the years, he has worked on satellite observations of sea ice from microwave satellite images as well as many other satellites. He is senior scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute.