President

Sebastian Robertson
Birdi

In 2016, Sebastian established Birdi and is the current CEO. Birdi is an aerial intelligence platform, offering an end-to-end solution by harnessing drone technology for data capture, visualization, and insights. With operations spanning more than 50 countries, Birdi's transformative impact is evident, with a community of over 3,000 drone operators contributing to its success. It is focused on increasing Australia's trajectory in aviation and Earth observational data insights, and remains committed to supporting enterprises to further engage with the Earth observation community.

Prior to Birdi, Sebastian established Batyr, a prominent charity dedicated to delivering mental health initiatives for young Australians aged 14 to 30. He was the founding CEO for five years, and then Non-Executive Chairman of the Board for a further 8. Batyr has reached over 400,000 young individuals through its programs and grown to a team of more than 60 full-time professionals, in addition to over 150 part-time/casual staff and a dynamic network of volunteers.

Sebastian has a Bachelor of Commerce and Economics from the Australian National University (ANU) and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors program (GAICD). He has served as a member of the Global Nexus Mental Health Council, an Advisory Board member to Corporate Match (a philanthropic venture), and an adviser within Hatchstone VC and Trampoline Ventures. 

Vice-President

A/Prof Bradley Evans
University of New England

Bradley is an Earth observation and remote sensing specialist who has worked on projects associated with NASA’s OCO2 Mission, Australia’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Ecosystem Modelling and Scaling Infrastructure and the Australian Government Department of Defence where he served on the AquaWatch and other committees related to EO. As a Chief Investigator of the Australian Research Council Training Centre on CubeSats, UAV’s and Their Applications, Bradley has led the development of an OpenSource Hyperspectral Imaging Spectrometer, OpenHSI (https://openhsi.github.io/), together with his students and CUAVA postdocs and in collaboration with PI Bachmann from Rochester Institute of Technology. Now at The University of New England, Bradley established the Earth Observation Laboratory with a special focus on water and wildlife habitat and riverine water quality in NSW. He is a contributor to NASA JPL’s Surface Biology Geology mission community group, who have funding for future Hyperspectral satellites and has a positive collaborative relationship with HyVista and Yamaha SkyTeam. 

Secretary

Sylvia Michael
The University of Queensland

Sylvia is an accomplished and respected specialist in the spatial sciences and remote sensing industry with over 30 years’ experience sourcing and processing satellite imagery. Sylvia began her career with a large exploration company who were at the forefront of image processing for the mineral exploration industry in Australia and in 1988, co-founded an image processing consultancy where she was instrumental in developing software and procedures to process satellite imagery available from new spaceborne sensors as they became commercially available.

Sylvia recently completed a Masters of Data Science degree at James Cook University and holds an adjunct associate professorship with the University of Queensland.

Treasurer

Alex Leith
Auspatious

Alex has been working in the Earth observation space for the last 5 years and has relationships with other EO professionals from across the world.  His work at Digital Earth Australia and Africa has delivered significant impact to people through making EO data more easily accessible. Alex has supported the community around the Open Data Cube, including getting it recognised as an OSGeo Community project. Alex's work now includes the Digital Earth Pacific program, empowering people across the Pacific to more easily access EO data.

The University of Queensland (UQ) Chair

Professor Stuart Phinn
The University of Queensland

Stuart is the Director of the Remote Sensing Research Centre and the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at The University of Queensland, and the Director of the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program. Stuart’s research interests include the use of satellite and airborne images to map, monitor and model biophysical properties of terrestrial and aquatic environments for scientific and management applications.

Professor Joseph Awange
Curtin University

Joseph Awange from the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, has been involved in the management committees of Osienala (friends of Lake Victoria; https://osienala.net/), National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA, Kenya), and the IAG Inter-Commission Committee on "Geodesy for Climate Research" (ICCC). Currently, he is serving the global Earth observation (EO) community in is his role as an Associate Editor of one of the leading EO related journals of Remote Sensing of Environment. At Curtin, he is a member of Remote Sensing & Satellite Research Group (RSSRG), and a Professor of Environmental Geoinformatics engaged in teaching and research in EO Spatial Sciences field that uses EO products (from satellites, reanalysis, and hydroclimate models) to sense changes in stored freshwater (surface, underground, vegetation, and soil moisture) and climate change. As a member of Earth Observation Australia (EOA), Joseph will bring his expertise in EO in the domains mentioned above by (i) sharing with the EOA community his experience in using EO products to face the emerging challenges of the 21st century posed by increased extreme hydroclimatic conditions, e.g., severity and frequency of droughts in Australia, a continent experiencing impacts of climate change that is affecting its water potential, and (ii), his experience in the committees listed above.

Dr Alex Held
CSIRO

Alex has been working in the Earth observation sector for over 30 years, conducting applications research, but also representing Australia at several high-level international committees. He also brings experience in working across government agencies, federal and state, and most recently was part of the team that developed Australia’s Earth Observation from Space Roadmap.

Dr Caroline Poulsen
Bureau of Meteorology

Caroline has over 20 years experience in the satellite remote sensing field. She began her career at the UK Meteorological Office and is now working at the Bureau of Meteorology where she is leading the proposed satellite lightning sensing mission. In between Caroline has worked mostly at RAL Space in the UK with short stints at the Department of Environment (UK) and as a senior lecturer at Monash University.

In her career Caroline has worked at each end of the remote sensing development timeline from instrument design to application development. Caroline sat on the AATSR/SLSTR science advisory group and is a member of the international satellite cloud working group. Contrary to most remote sensing people, Caroline loves clouds and has been developing algorithms to monitor the characteristics of clouds and aerosols as part of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative program. At the Bureau she has worked on developing satellite products of surface solar irradiance.

Caroline is most passionate about how remote sensing can address issues around weather and climate change as well as how data fusion techniques and machine learning can be used to derive maximum information content from multiple and diverse data sets.

Dr Anthony Rea
World Meteorological Organization

Anthony has a long association with the Australian Earth observation community dating back 25 years. He has a PhD in Meteorological Satellite Remote Sensing from RMIT and was a leading expert in satellite applications and programs at the Bureau of Meteorology until his departure in 2019. During this time Anthony worked closely with colleagues in CSIRO and GA to build a collaborative approach to space activities that have been further developed under the guidance of the Australian Space Agency. In his current role at WMO Anthony is responsible for global requirements for satellite observations spanning weather, climate, water and cryosphere as well as coordination and capacity development. Anthony is also the Director of the secretariat of the Global Climate Observing System which is a major source of requirements to the global EO community and the UNFCCC. Anthony participates in the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (CGMS) and hosted its 50th meeting in 2022. Anthony is also connected to CEOS and is the CEOS Principal for WMO.

Dr Tim Whiteside
The Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist (ERISS), Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water

Tim is a remote sensing research scientist in the Office of the Supervising Scientist within the Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. He has a PhD in remote sensing , specifically multiscale mapping of savanna vegetation using very high resolution satellite imagery. More recently Tim has moved into applied research of drones as tools for Earth observation. This has included the building and integration of a variety of sensors, and developing methods for collecting, processing and analysing drone data (including hyperspectral, multispectral, and LiDAR) for environmental monitoring.

Tim is currently involved in with a team of like-minded colleagues in organising a workshop comparing of sensors and methods for the calibration and validation of satellite imagery using hyperspectral drone data.

Lee-Anne Worrall
Quolls Australia

After many years in office and event management, Lee-Anne decided to follow her passion and enrolled in a post-graduate course in Conservation Biology at the University of Queensland. This is where she was introduced Earth observation and knew she wanted to expand her knowledge in this area. In 2022, Lee-Anne completed a Graduate Diploma Geographic Information Science and has develop a passion for Earth observation. During that year, she volunteered at the Advancing Earth Observation Forum in Brisbane and observed the professionalism and benefits that EOA provides to its community.

A personal project which Lee-Anne is developing under the name of Quolls Australia, aims to encourage communication and sharing of information between local governments, organisations and communities to help everyone appreciate the unique biodiversity we have in Australia, and that it is worth actively protecting. By creating a user-friendly website offering a map-based platform which includes collating and updating threatened species biodiversity information, bushfire and flood history with contacts for local and Indigenous resources to enable access to information and create awareness, understanding and engagement in conservation within local areas and beyond.

Lee-Anne is currently undertaking a casual contract role with EOA as a Research Assistant where she has gained familiarity with the large variety of projects being undertaken in this field.

Dr Fang Yuan
FrontierSI

Fang is excited to be a member of the EOA Management Committee as she is keen to help build a dynamic and inclusive community that can realize the value of Earth observation for the benefit of societies in Australia and world-wide.

With a PhD in Physics and over 10 years of professional experience as an astrophysicist and EO scientist, Fang has a wide range of technical expertise in remote sensing and data science, as well as rich experience in partnership, project and program management. In her previous roles at Geoscience Australia, Fang led application development for natural resources mapping, disaster management, and land cover change monitoring for Australia and Africa, working closely with partners from government, industry and research organizations. Fang has helped to establish Digital Earth Africa, an internationally recognized platform and program that uses Australian innovation to transform use of EO data across the African continent. In her current role as the EO technical lead at FrontierSI, Fang continues to follow her passion of making positive impacts using technology and through collaboration.

Fang would like to help strengthen the relationship between EO and the broader geospatial and science communities. Fang has been an active supporter of gender equity, diversity and inclusion and values every opportunity to help build an EO community where we value people as individuals, support each other to grow and actively listen to other voices from within and outside the community.

Emerita Professor Megan Lewis
The University of Adelaide

Megan has had a long career as a university academic and researcher in environmental remote sensing. She particularly specialises in hyperspectral sensing of vegetation, soil and water, and has an extensive record of collaborative research with environmental managers and government agencies, developing new remote sensing approaches and tools for assessment and monitoring in a range of terrestrial and aquatic environments.

Larissa Mar Fan
National Earth Observation Partnerships Coordinator
The University of Queensland