IGARSS 2026, the flagship event of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS), kicked off with a Plenary Welcome Session on Monday morning, August 10, in Washington D.C.

GRSS Chapters are the direct link between the Society and its members. And it’s through these localized chapters that members most easily take advantage of the many services and benefits GRSS has to offer.

The Plenary presentations at IGARSS 2026 in Washington, D.C., featured an up-to-the-minute preview of key Earth observation satellite missions being planned by NASA. Dr. Karen St. Germain, Earth Science Division Director at NASA and 2010 IGARSS Co-Chair, provided a rapid-fire description of the many NASA satellites that will soon be capturing data related to Earth’s surface, atmosphere, and hydrology.

Young Professional (YP) events were impressive once again this year at IGARSS. Among the most important of the YP training sessions was the Presentation Skills Workshop led for the fourth year by Brian Brophy, Director of Theater at Caltech and Story Coach at NASA JPL. The goal of his workshops is to teach young engineers and scientists to present their research accurately and memorably.

Tomorrow.io is a commercial company that is successfully breaking the barrier to weather data with the goal of improving upon the forecasting capabilities that were traditionally the sole domain of government entities.

The prestigious IEEE GRSS David Landgrebe Award was bestowed upon Dr. Qian (Jenny) Du at the 2026 IGARSS Awards Banquet in Washington D.C.