Remote Sensing Expert Joins UA Engineering

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Dr. Prasad Gogineni

TUSCALOOSA, Ala.  — Dr. Prasad Gogineni, an international-recognized expert in the field of remote sensing, will join the faculty of The University of Alabama College of Engineering.

Gogineni comes to UA from the University of Kansas, where he has been on the faculty for more than 30 years. In Kansas, he formed and has led the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, or CReSIS, and is the Deane E. Ackers Distinguished Professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science.

Beginning in January 2017, Gogineni will be a professor at UA with a joint appointment in the departments of electrical and computer engineering along with aerospace engineering and mechanics.

Subject to approval of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees, he will be appointed as the Cudworth Professor of Engineering and direct a new Center for Remote Sensing.

“We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Gogineni on board,” said Dr. Charles L. Karr, dean of the UA College of Engineering. “He brings a wealth of experience in the area of remote sensing which will be critical as we work to enhance our expertise in the area of water.

“He will not only challenge our students to find cutting edge solutions, but he will also mentor many of the young and talented faculty we have hired in the past few years and that we plan to hire in the near future.”

Gogineni’s research interests include radio-frequency and microwave engineering as well as radar systems, radar remote sensing and microwave radiometers. He applies radars to the remote sensing of the polar ice sheets, sea ice, ocean, atmosphere and land.

With this background, CReSIS was established by the National Science Foundation at Kansas in 2005 with the mission of developing new technologies and computer models to measure and predict the response of sea level change to the mass balance of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.

Work will continue at UA in this area and will involve students and researchers in multiple disciplines across campus. His research at UA will also involve using unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, that carry remote sensing technologies to collect data on surface water and snow depth in the continental United States.

Gogineni is recognized as an IEEE Fellow, and he is a member of URSI, the American Geophysical Union, the International Glaciological Society and the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the editor of the newsletter of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. As a Fulbright Senior Scholar, he conducted research at the University of Tasmania in 2002.

He has authored or co-authored 125 archival journal publications and more than 200 technical reports and conference presentations.

From 1997 to 1999, Gogineni was on leave from Kansas to serve as manager of the NASA Polar Program, based in Washington D.C., and he has participated in more than a dozen radar experiments in the Artic.

He received his doctorate degree from Kansas in 1984 and began working there as visiting professor and research engineer before joining the faculty full time in 1986.

He received his bachelor’s degree from Mysore University, India, in 1973, and his master’s degree from Kerala University, India, in 1976.

Contact

Adam Jones, engineering public relations, 205/348-6444, acjones12@eng.ua.edu