Professor David A. Landgrebe - Career Synopsis

Dr. Landgrebe is Professor Emeritus of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Purdue University. He received the BSEE (1956), MSEE (1958), and PhD (1962) from Purdue. He has held positions with Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey; Interstate Electronics Corporation, Anaheim, California; and Douglas Aircraft Company, Newport Beach, California.

Dr. Landgrebe joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1962, teaching and conducting research in the area of signal theory and signal representation. He served as Director of Purdue's Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing (LARS) from 1969 until 1981. During this time the staff of the Laboratory grew from a few persons to more than 120 with expenditures rising from about $300K/year to more than $3M/year. From 1981 to 1984 he was Associate Dean of Engineering and Director of the Engineering Experiment Station. From 1986 through 1989 he served as the Coordinator of Graduate Programs for the School of Electrical Engineering. He served as Acting Head of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering from July 1, 1995 to July 29, 1996.

He is the author of the textbook "Signal Theory Methods in Multispectral Remote Sensing," (Wiley 2003) and a co-author of, "Remote Sensing: The Quantitative Approach," (McGraw-Hill 1978) one of the first textbooks of the area. He was also a contributor to the book, "Remote Sensing of Environment" (1976), the American Society of Photogrammetry's "Manual of Remote Sensing" (First Edition, 1974) and Information Processing for Remote Sensing (1999). He served as Guest Editor of a special issue of the IEEE Proceedings published in June 1985 entitled, "Perceiving the Earth's Resources." He was co-editor of special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing appearing in May 1999 and July 2001. He has been a member of the Editorial Board of the journal, "Remote Sensing of Environment" since its inception in 1970.He was President of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society for 1986 and 1987 and was a member of the Administrative Committee of that Society from 1979 to 1990. He received that Society's Outstanding Service Award in 1988.

He has served on a number of National Research Council and NASA advisory committees, among them the following:

• During 1967-68 he was Chairman of the Sensors and Data Systems Panel of the National Research Council's Study on Peaceful Uses of Earth Oriented Satellites. This study helped to establish the basis for the design of Landsat 1, 2, and 3.
• In 1975 he hosted and chaired the NASA Thematic Mapper Working Group which defined the spectral bands and system parameters for that instrument flown on Landsat 4 and 5.
• From 1980 to 1984 he was a member of the National Research Council Space Science Board's Committee on Data Management and Computation (CODMAC).
• He served on NASA's Space Applications Advisory Committee, its Earth System Science Committee, the SESAC Task Force on Scientific Uses of Space Station, and the NASA Space Station Science and Application Advisory Committee.
• He was a member of the NASA/JPL's Imaging Spectrometer Science Advisory Group which helped to define the parameters for the EOS High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (HIRIS).
• He served on the Science Steering Group of the Pilot Land Data System.
• He served as a member of Executive Committee of the Center of Excellence for Space and Information Systems, University of Maryland and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via the Universities Space Research Association.
• He served on the National Research Council's Space Studies Board and served as Co-chair of its Joint Committee on Technology for Space Science and Applications.
• He was a member of the Earth Observing System's High Resolution Imaging Spectrometer Instrument Team.
• He was a member of the Geosciences Data Panel of the National Research Council Study on the Long-Term Retention of Selected Scientific and Technical Records of the Federal Government.
• He was a member of the NASA Landsat Science Working Group.
• He was a member of the National Research Council/National Academy of Engineering Committee on Advanced Space Technology.
• He was a member of the New Millennium Program EO-1 Science Advisory Team

His research contributions to the field of remote sensing include the following:

• He was one of the originators of the multispectral concept for deriving information about the Earth's land resources from aircraft and spacecraft. Beginning in 1966 he led an effort to develop the use of pattern recognition techniques applied to multispectral data for identifying and mapping land cover types. Papers on this topic were published beginning in 1967.
• In 1975 he published one of the early papers showing how to efficiently incorporate spatial variations e.g. scene texture, as an adjunct to multispectral variations into the data analysis process.
• In the late 1970's his work also included the devising of means for the analytical design of optimal bands or features for remote sensing pattern classifiers.
• Subsequent works have also included:
  • studies of pattern classifier use when only very small sized training sets are available, a circumstance characteristic of remote sensing,
  • pattern classifier use incorporating ancillary data such as might be available from a Geographic Information System data base,
  • constructing a simulator for an entire remote sensing system,
  • decision tree classifiers for dealing with very complex data analysis situations, and
  • the study of the impact of noise in remote sensing systems.

Recent works have involved analysis schemes useful in the case of very large numbers of spectral bands and large numbers of classes. With ECE colleague Larry Biehl, he devised and constructed a complete hyperspectral data analysis software system for personal workstations. This system, called MultiSpec, is available on the world wide web, and has been acquired by more than 3000 university and secondary schools and government, commercial and university laboratories around the world.

Dr. Landgrebe is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a Fellow of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,  and a member of the American Society for Engineering Education. He is also a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Tau Beta Pi, and Sigma Xi honorary societies. He has received several outstanding teacher awards given by his department. He received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1973) for his work in the field of machine analysis methods for remotely sensed Earth observational data. In 1967, he received the NASA and the U.S. Department of Interior's William T. Pecora Award on behalf of the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing which he directed. He was the 1990 recipient of the William T. Pecora Award in recognition of his individual contributions. In 1992 he received the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society's Distinguished Achievement Award. In 2003 he received the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society's Education Award. The "IEEE Workshop on Advances in Techniques for Analysis of Remotely Sensed Data, An Honorary Workshop for Prof. David A. Landgrebe" was organized by the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society and held at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2003. Dr. Landgrebe was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005.

Selected Publications

A list of research publications is provided. Several later in the list, which are of more current interest, are available for downloading and view of the full paper. These are in Adobe Acrobat format and require the Acrobat Reader software, which is available for downloading without cost for may different platforms.

Last Updated: February 16, 2005