Alan Strahler

Dr. Alan H. Strahler holds the position of Professor of Geography and Researcher in the Center for Remote Sensing. He is presently a member of the Science Teams of NASA’s MODIS instrument, aboard the Terra and Aqua platforms, and the DSCO (Deep Space Climate Observatory) mission to view the earth from solar orbit at the L1 position. His most recent focus has been on providing land science products from the MODIS instruments, including BRDF/Albedo and Land Cover/Land-Cover Dynamics product suites. His research over the years has primarily focused on geometric-optical modeling of the bidirectional reflectance of land cover types, including both means and variances as affected by regularization over finite pixel sizes. He has also maintained a long-term interest in land-cover classification using multitemporal, multispectral, multidirectional and spatial information as acquired in reflective and emissive imagery of the earth’s surface.
Dr. Strahler was awarded the Association of American Geographers/Remote Sensing Science Group Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing in 1993 and the Doctorem Scientarum Honoris Causa from the Université Catholique du Louvain, Belgium, in 2000. He received BA and PhD degrees in Geography from The Johns Hopkins University in 1964 and 1969, respectively.