Student Member Spotlight: Rufai Balogun

Written by: Kevin Corbley

Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, Rufai Omowunmi Balogun is working on his PhD in Geography with a concentration in Remote Sensing at Clark University’s Graduate School of Geography in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. As a research associate at Clark’s Center for Geospatial Analytics, he is adapting Machine Learning methods for downstream Earth observation analytics focusing on data preparation and benchmarking geospatial foundation models. His undergraduate study was in Meteorology and Climate Science from the Federal University of Technology, Akure, in Ondo State Nigeria; He also completed a Joint Master’s Degree in Copernicus Masters in Digital Earth from the University of Salzburg, Austria and the University of South Brittany, France. Most recently, Rufai was named a NASA Lifelines Fellow. He became involved in GRSS in 2021 during COVID when a professor encouraged him to help organize an online conference session.

What experiences during your work organizing the online session convinced you to join GRSS?

I noticed a lot of technical things going on, and I wanted to learn more. And I just kept following the Society from there and got more and more involved. I wanted a technical community…and to also learn more about what other people are doing. And I saw GRSS as a place where I could meet more people doing a lot of interesting things and also learn about the industry. There were people at these cool companies doing amazing things. I wanted to speak to them and learn how they think about these problems. And it was good that GRSS already had the Young Professionals Program, which ended up being the factor. I became even more involved at the time, getting the opportunity to contribute to an event in the society…and to connect with people doing things in government, industry, and academia. GRSS is the community that has all these different avenues. It has exceeded my expectation.

How has GRSS helped you in your academic pursuits? 

It definitely played a role in my academic pursuits. Through GRSS, I was able to go to certain conferences, like the European Geosciences Union (EGU) and IGARSS and speak to scientists and connect with people doing interesting project that I would like to work on. For instance, I met my current advisor at EGU, and we were chatting about some of the things I’m currently working on, apart from my PhD.

As you look beyond your PhD, how do you feel your GRSS experiences will contribute to your professional career? 

I want to engage more on the technical side of things, and I see people who are expert in their field. I want to learn from them, contribute in some way, shape and form. And I think that is very enriching, because then if I need to collaborate on a particular topic, I have an idea of where I could reach out and say, “I’m also part of GRSS, and I’m aware of what you do with this committee.” I can easily access them through GRSS. I think that will probably play a much bigger role in my career.

Are there any other GRSS activities that you want to get involved with?

Because I’m doing a PhD now, I want to get more into the Technical Committees and see how things are being done there to learn more about the fundamentals of geoscience and remote sensing. Other than that, I will get involved in whatever opportunity comes up with the Young Professionals or Industry Relations.

At this point, do you think you’re going to stay in academia or are you going to go off into industry, or just not decided yet?

Depending on the side of the bed I wake up on today, I feel like I want to go into academia, but tomorrow, industry. Maybe both. Some people in industry still do to work as research scientists.

If anybody wants to see you in person, what meetings are you going to attend?

Possibly, AGU25 in New Orleans this December.

What words of encouragement would you give to other students who were considering joining GRSS? What would you tell them?

Join! I would say to someone who is maybe thinking of joining that it’s a good place to be, not just because you learn a lot of things, but because you also meet a lot of people. You see just how friendly they are, how encouraging they can be, and all of that could have lasting impact on your career. This increases your confidence, especially as a young professional, in how to approach the experts. There is enormous opportunity to learn in the society. GRSS is the right place to be, where you can really learn and expand yourself.