GRSS President and Executive VP Look Ahead to Future Society Goals

By Kevin P. Corbley

Dr. Saibun Tjuatja is halfway through his term as GRSS President, and similarly Dr. Sidharth Misra is a year deep in his tenure as Executive Vice President. In February 2026, both took time away from their professional positions for a brief reflection on achievements in 2025 and a look ahead to objectives for the coming year and beyond.

Dr. Tjuatja is Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering at University of Texas, Arlington, and Dr. Misra is a Research Engineer at NASA JPL.

At the start of his term a little more than a year ago, Dr. Tjuatja outlined three key goals
for GRSS –

• Enhance the membership experience
• Broaden participation and engagement
• Drive innovation outside the geoscience community

In just a year, the Society has made gains in all three areas. At IGARSS 2025, for example, members at every level of their professional journey enjoyed access to education and development training. With regards to broadening participation, GRSS has strengthened its engagement with students and practitioners in historically under-served geographic areas, including Africa, Asia, and Latin America, through formation of new chapters and expanded regional conferences and activities.

Innovation beyond the immediate GRSS community occurred in dramatic fashion last year with Chapters in Indonesia and Sri Lanka spearheaded efforts to improve disaster response in two local natural disasters through the implementation of remote sensing and geospatial technologies. [An article on this topic is forthcoming.]

Work on all three focus areas will continue, of course, but with a central focus in 2026 captured in theme “Amplify the Insight – Elevate the Impact.” Dr. Tjuatja is putting renewed emphasis on expanding the reach of GRSS innovation beyond the Society itself with efforts continuing well into the future. The objective is for GRSS members’ expertise in the theory, concepts, and techniques of geoscience and remote sensing to have a positive impact on humanity as a whole on a global scale.

For GRSS, the key to accomplishing this, said Dr. Tjuatja, will be to expand and strengthen interaction with Industry and Policy Makers. The value of remote sensing and geospatial technologies are most impactful when delivered by commercial companies and informed government policies. This won’t be accomplished overnight and must be a concerted emphasis for GRSS year after year moving forward.

Engaging a Diversifying Industry

Engaging with the remote sensing industry will be a complicated task, Dr. Tjuatja explained, because the commercial sector has become more complex and diversified in just the past 20 years. Previously, only a small handful of private companies and quasi-commercial government organizations built and launched Earth observation satellites and sold the data.

“Our main industry partner used to be a space agency,” said Dr. Tjuatja.

Today, thanks primarily to dramatically less expensive small satellites, there are dozens of satellite operators around the world. Not only that, there are now hundreds or thousands of data sellers, resellers, value-added firms, and information extraction entities providing commercial solutions, many in specific vertical markets. The remote sensing value chain has exploded in both the total number of organizations involved and the diversity of services they offer.

“The focus of industry has changed as well…it’s very focused on applications,” he said. “There’s a much broader range of industry we now need to engage, but how do we do it?”

The answers could be coming this summer. GRSS is forming an Ad Hoc committee to address this complex issue with pilot activities being implemented by year end. The committee will be comprised of representatives from all continents with many coming from companies, both large and small, from every sector of the commercial remote sensing value chain – emphasizing end user applications in non-military markets.

“The [committee’s] goal is to recommend not just ideas, but plans to implement,” said Dr. Tjuatja. “And the plans must represent win-win scenarios for GRSS and industry.”

Dr. Misra added that GRSS knows it has not traditionally connected well with industry because the society is perceived as an academic one. To counter this in the past few years, GRSS has begun including additional industry content through well-attended Technology Industry Education (TIE) Forum at IGARSS, GRSS flagship conference. Members can expect to see more outreach like this designed to entice more attendance from commercial organizations.

“Just as we are trying to create multiple value propositions for our different members, GRSS also must adopt specific value propositions useful to our industry colleagues,” said Dr. Misra.

Educating Policymakers

As is true with any emerging technology, governments can only be expected to adopt and implement those of which they have direct knowledge. Likewise, policymakers who spearhead much of the technological adoption can’t be faulted if they lack understanding of the latest in innovation…unless they are informed by the developers and proponents of given technologies.

Such is the case for geospatial and remote sensing innovations. While implementation has definitely increased worldwide, even in developing nations, policymakers everywhere need ongoing education especially in end-use applications that can save lives, protect resources, and enhance government efficiency. Dr. Tjuatja believes GRSS is the best organization to inform policymakers of the full spectrum of benefits to be exacted from remote sensing and geospatial technologies.

The challenge in engaging policymakers is similar to that of industry where a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work because government structures are different around the world. Lobbying in some countries is common, such as the U.S. In fact, GRSS’ parent organization IEEE maintains dedicated efforts keeping the U.S. Congress informed of the importance of technology, innovation, and its everyday benefits.

Elsewhere, Dr. Tjuatja plans to look at individual countries where GRSS is active and determine how to educate relevant government officials at low levels and move up there. Members will play key roles in this. This year will see GRSS laying the groundwork for a multi-year plan of action.

“We have learned that some of our members in developing countries actually work inside of the government or related research agencies,” said Dr. Tjuatja. “In countries where academia and government are intertwined, our members have more say and can affect policy. We need to engage them in a constructive and positive way.”

He added that GRSS does not necessarily care about political affiliation as long as the engagement with the policymaker can benefit members and society as a whole.

Establishing Trust

Wrapping up the conversation on engaging with industry and governments, Dr. Misra observed that one element must be common to these, and all, initiatives of GRSS.

“We need to make sure that trust is established…so that people look to [GRSS] and say, ‘Yes, these people know what they’re talking about. They’re technically competent, the best of the best, the experts in geoscience and remote sensing,’” he explained.

Dr. Misra added that none of these initiatives will be successful without increased participation by GRSS members. He has assigned himself the task of marshaling members at every level to partake in volunteer opportunities to inform government, industry, and academia of the value that geospatial technologies can deliver.