Professional Member Spotlight: Rashmi Shah

Written by: Madeleine Dawson, Content and Design Staff for IEEE GRSS

Dr. Rashmi Shah is a Scientist and Technical Group Supervisor for the Water and Ecosystems Group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering from Purdue University and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology. A central focus of her work is transitioning early-stage technology development to project-level implementation, addressing critical scientific questions and enabling new geoscience and remote sensing applications. Dr. Shah currently serves in several leadership roles, including Chair of the Metro and Coastal Los Angeles Joint Section GRSS Chapter, Chair of the IFT Technical Committee, and Chair of the GRSS Membership Committee.

Please introduce yourself and give us a short background of who you are and what you do?

I have been working at JPL for about 11 years now on technology development for earth science and application purposes. I work on satellite instrumentation for a technology called signals of opportunity, which is the idea that you can use other signals that are not relevant for science, such as DirecTV, XM radio, and GPS that are constantly bouncing off the surface of the Earth for imaging the parameters of the Earth. I have been doing research on snow, soil moisture, ocean height, ocean wind, and vegetation. To that, I have delivered some flight hardware. We have done some key demos of the concepts from ground, air and space. The second part is also focused on how we get to a project level and what application questions we can address through mission formulation. Moving more towards the science side, in the past few months I moved to the water and ecosystem group at JPL to figure out how the full technology can impact our understanding of the water quantity and water quality.

How long have you been a member? Tell us about your GRSS journey.

IGARSS 2010 was my first GRSS conference ever. I was at Purdue where Dr. Melba Crawford was teaching. She was the first female president for the IEEE GRSS society. Because of that she introduced me to all her students that were going so we formed a student group at that conference, and we would do things together. Starting my professional journey within that conference is how I see it myself. I have been engaged since then and attended IGARSS every year during my PhD from 2010-2013. In 2012 we also did a GNSS-R specialist meeting, a workshop at Purdue, and at that time we asked for sponsorship from GRSS.

I took a bit of a break [from attending IGARSS] when I started at JPL. In 2017, I got involved in the chapter in Metro LA Section. The IGARSS conference was in Texas at the time, but the Metro LA section hosted and organized the summer school in 2017. That was my introduction back to society as I took a little hiatus in between those years.

Since then, I have been involved in the chapter as a secretary, vice chair, and chair. I became the chair during the pandemic, and it took some time to build back. I am also the associate editor of JSTARS. I got involved in the working group under one of the technical committees under IFT. The last two years I have been serving as the chair of that technical committee. I am also the membership chair for the society this year.

I also help on the conference side. I was the technical program committee chair for IGARSS 2023. I serve on the conference advisory board committee for GRSS as well as also collaborating with the industry relations team.

What inspired you to join GRSS?

My [PhD] faculty advisor, Jim Garrison, was extremely engaged in the society and served as editor for the magazine and is now a distinguished lecturer. He brought me to the IGARSS 2010 conference, and the first conference ended up being a very great experience. From there I continued to build my portfolio in the GRSS community.

How has GRSS contributed to your professional growth?

A lot of it has been networking even within the community at JPL as well as outside. When I did IGARSS 2023, I was a known entity at JPL, but they were able to interact with me more at JPL [following this conference]. Through that I have started more discussions and collaborations.

In the broader community, I have always felt it as a home away from home. I have found a group of people I can be myself with professionally. Brainstorming different ideas, research topics, and collaboration. All of that has come through. Overall, it has helped me with professional growth.

Then in 2020, I got the early career award at GRSS. That was helpful both internally at JPL as well as getting recognized for their research. In 2022, I was a co-author of a JSTARS paper that got the best paper award for the year. That showed the impact of what my research is doing to the community and that the community recognizes that as well.

What advice would you give to individuals considering joining the GRSS community?

I would say to get engaged even at a small scale. If a student goes to a conference, volunteer! Go to networking events and do not be scared to ask questions. Hindsight is always 2020. As a student I might not have taken this advice myself, but when you are starting something new, you are in the best place to ask questions and not have anyone asking you why you are asking so many questions. There is that naivety of being kidlike and being able to do that. In general, GRSS is a community where people are able to share that knowledge. Come with curiosity, open mindedness, and engagement. Don’t be afraid to approach anybody and talk to them. I think I can say for a lot of people that interaction with the new members is what keeps us here.

What has your experience been like leading a GRSS chapter? Any challenges and how have you addressed them?

A little bit of background, I got engaged in the chapter in 2016/2017. In 2020, I became the chair, which was a challenging year to begin with. Right before that in 2018 we had gotten the best chapter award and then in 2020 we barely put on one or two events.

Furthermore, I have an interesting experience leading this chapter, because LA is quite big and there are seven different sections and we are the only chapter. One of the challenges we have been trying to work on in the last four years has been how we can engage with other members in the LA area itself who are not technically in the chapter. We formed a joint chapter last year. We navigated and worked with GRSS to understand how to do a joint chapter.

Additionally, we have used this chapter for AdCom members to know what some of the chapter challenges can be. We had Mariko Burgin [2023-2024 IEEE GRSS President] serve as the treasurer of the chapter until last year. She is the one that brought me in as a volunteer. Paul Rosen [JPL] is the chief finance officer. He was the chapter chair in 2012 and startup advisor who revamped the chapter. He brought some really cool ideas.

If other societies have pilot ideas, we test it. We have sometimes been the testing ground for different initiatives. That makes this chapter a little different and unique than the others. We don’t always have to worry about ideas; we have to worry about how to implement them and inform going forward. It is an interesting chapter in the way that at some times we have more fellows than students, because of involvement through JPL. Therefore, the challenge is how we can infuse new people and make sure it is still relevant. We decided to make things exciting by having dinner with Charles Elachi to connect and ask questions. Dr. Elachi was the former director of JPL, and he was engaged with GRSS for a long time. It’s having the ability to facilitate some of those discussions [to keep things relevant].

Why do you think establishing a chapter in your region is important and how do you maintain cadence in membership?

Having a chapter in this region is very, very important. We are still a little bit siloed because of all these entities and different sections so we are trying to figure out a better way of interacting with all the regions and trying to reach out to all the members in these regions. We are trying to form a bridge with the student chapter at USC and create a little bit of a pipeline where we provide some expertise in networking with the students and the chapter.

One of the ways we maintain cadence in membership…fellow members tend to retain themselves as a member for longer times, so we don’t go down [in members], but it is also not helping growth. So, engaging more with students and trying to help them understand [the value]. Bringing students in and volunteering is the other way we can maintain cadence.

What has been achieved in your chapter that you are proud of?

The 2017 summer school was great. We figured out a way to do a pitch competition. We did a student project where while students were learning, they were put into pods and came up with concepts that they pitched. We had AdCom members come and there was a little bit of judging. That was actually one of my highlights, and I would love to do that again. Also, bringing in the two technical committees, IFT and MIRS, and organizing a summer school around that last year. Lastly, we were heavily engaged with IGARSS 2023. Many members from the chapter overlapped with their organizing committee, and we were able to figure out how to go back to in-person conferences. That was an interesting transition year.

What is your vision for the future of your chapter?

We do talks and are trying to enable the student community. I want to figure out a better way of doing things for more interactions. That is my vision for this year. Also, we have so many missions between all the people here, so people understand the different kinds of remote sensing for geosciences. That is another theme I want to bring more into this year.