GRSS Provides Major Support for Living Planet Symposium 2025
GRSS served as a sponsor and high-profile participant in the Living Planet Symposium held in late June 2025 in Vienna, Austria. In addition to hosting an informative booth on the show floor, GRSS members presented technical papers, spoke on authoritative panels, and participated in the poster session.
“We tried our best to highlight what GRSS is doing, not just for members but for everyone in the geosciences…and we showed what our volunteers are doing all over the world to strengthen knowledge sharing – which is the number-one goal of the Society,” said Stephanie Tumampos, GRSS Chair of Publicity and Marketing.
Organized every three years, Living Planet Symposium (LPS) is one of the world’s premier Earth Observation events, attracting researchers, policy makers, business professionals, and environmental influencers from all over the world. Its objective is to “provide a forum to present and discuss the latest scientific findings and applications based on satellite data, and to review the contribution that data and technologies have made and could further make in addressing environmental and societal challenges” related to climate challenges and sustainability.
Onsite at LPS, the GRSS booth served as the focal point for distributing information on membership and educating those unfamiliar with the Society on the many ways they can interact with GRSS and other members. Attendees were given handouts and links encouraging them to take part in our many outreach initiatives, including the following activities:
Webinars – Free and open to all in both live and recorded formats, GRSS webinars are the Society’s premier education and knowledge-sharing events, passing along vital details on the latest research in geoscience and remote sensing fields, but also supporting the community with tutorials on career topics, such as writing CVs or acing job interviews. In 2024, GRSS hosted 27 webinars attended live by over 4,500 people. The recordings can be found on the YouTube channel.
Down to Earth Podcast – Among the most successful GRSS outreach activities, the Down to Earth podcast series hosted by Stephanie Tumampos has now completed six seasons with a total of 55 episodes and 62 guests, covering topics as diverse as climate change, technology trends, and women’s professional issues. The recordings have been downloaded over 18,000 times by listeners in 100+ countries. With no paid promotions, this podcast series consistently ranks among the best in the geoscience and geospatial communities.
Society Conferences – LPS attendees were informed of the many conferences GRSS sponsors worldwide every year with a special emphasis put on IGARSS, this year in Brisbane, Australia, and next year in Washington, D.C. For those unfamiliar with GRSS, booth volunteers promoted these events as the ideal place for geoscience students and researchers to present their own work and to learn from others.
Summer School – LPS volunteers talked up the Summer School sessions organized by GRSS. One of the most well attended was the Image Analysis and Data Fusion (IADF) School on Computer Vision for Earth Observation organized by the IADF Technical Committee. It was presented at LPS by Silvia Liberata Ullo.
The booth also became an important spot for personal conversations at LPS. GRSS volunteers reported meeting with members from all over the world they had never met before in person. Many of the attending members were the heads of GRSS Chapters in their local regions, and they exchanged details on what they have done to promote the exchange of geoscience and EO information in their areas.
“They were so thankful for the support and resources the Society provides them…and they are dedicated to making GRSS a platform for everyone to [learn] about the amazing research by members and to encourage students be better researchers and become professionals in the field,” said Tumampos. “It’s an amazing thing to have people come by and say, ‘Hey, I’m part of GRSS too!’”
Apart from the booth activities, GRSS members were participating in just about every other aspect of LPS, including co-sponsoring the IDEA Mixer. Several members presented during important symposium sessions. One of the most important was the Agora Session focusing on Quantum Computing.
A featured speaker was Francesco Mauro, a Visiting Researcher at the European Space Agency (ESA) in Frascati, Italy. Francesco heads the Region 8 Chapter and co-leads the Quantum Computing for Earth Observation Working Group within the GRSS QUEST Technical Committee (TC). He spoke at length on the collaborative quantum computing research now being collaborated on by the TC and ESA.
Another important presentation was given during a poster session by Prof. Silvia Liberata Ullo from the University of Sannio, Benevento (Italy). She is a GRSS Europe Liaison, and GRSS IADF TC Member. Prof. Ullo described here experience in her own words:
Attending the ESA LPS25 with the wonderful people who came with me – PhD and Master students from the University of Sannio, the University of Pavia and the University Parthenope: Francesco Mauro, Luigi Russo, Francesca Razzano, Pietro Di Stasio, Simona Reale, Babak Memar, Valeria Pia Vevoto, Gabriele Punzo, Mattia Reale; and Alessandro Sebastianelli – was something amazing: the possibility to present our Group’s research activities and the joint ESA-GRSS initiatives for the exploitation of Earth Observation data to make our planet safer and nicer. [This was] the Agorà session F.01.04. including Nicolas Longépé of ESA and Paolo Gamba of University of Pavia.
Lastly, a mixer was held and organized by the Inspire, Develop, Empower, and Advance (IDEA) committee where over 70 participants from LPS gathered together to connect, discuss and collaborate. This mixer was in collaboration with Women+ in Geospatial and Geochicas. GRSS participation at LPS 2025 was an overwhelming success. In Stephanie Tumampos’ words: We want GRSS to be a platform where people connect, discuss things, build something together, and make meaningful collaborations.
If you would like to know more about GRSS activities mentioned in this article, please check these links:
– GRSS Webinars:
www.linkedin.com/posts/ieee-grss_ieeegrss-lps2025-activity-7343263342804815875-Z…
– GRSS Podcast
www.linkedin.com/posts/ieee-grss_downtoearth-lps25-downtoearth-activity-73440229…
– IADF School
www.linkedin.com/posts/ieee-grss_ieeegrss-lps25-ieeegrss-activity-73436163901861…
– Agora session (2 links)
www.linkedin.com/posts/silvia-liberata-ullo-67280717_lps25-exploitingearthobserv…
www.linkedin.com/posts/ieee-grss_ieeegrss-lps25-eo-activity-7343948835154497536-…
– QUEST TC:
www.linkedin.com/posts/ieee-grss_ieeegrss-lps2025-ieeegrss-activity-734315121577…
