Development and Evolution of NASA Satellite Remote Sensing for Ecology

The presentation by Dr Diane E. Wickland, former NASA Terrestrial Ecology Program Manager and Lead for NASA Carbon Cycle and Ecosystems Focus Area, provides a top-level overview from her perspective of the development and evolution of the program.

Dr Wickland joined NASA in 1985 to manage a newly formed Terrestrial Ecosystems Program. Along with other NASA program managers, she was charged with reorienting the program to be less empirical and have a greater focus on first principles, and to prepare for a next generation of earth-observing satellites. As an ecologist, she thought that focusing on important ecological questions and recruiting practicing ecologists to the program would facilitate such a change in directions.