Dr. Mikey Mohan is the founder and CEO of Ecoresolve, a California-based research organization that integrates remote sensing, data science and community engagement to develop nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation and coastal ecosystem restoration. His ongoing work focuses on remote sensing for mangrove conservation in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, utilizing UAVs, LiDAR and optical remote sensing technologies. Dr. Mohan’s research particularly explores the intersections of blue carbon credits, ecotourism, coastal biodiversity, community involvement, public health and disaster risk reduction. Currently, in addition to developing open-source tools and tutorials for coastal monitoring, he is focused on mapping secondary mangrove forests, pinpointing optimal locations for regeneration projects, and evaluating their potential for carbon and biodiversity credits using remote sensing data fusion techniques.

Rob Chancia is an imaging scientist from Rochester Institute of Technology focused on environmental applications of remote sensing, including precision agriculture and forestry.

Dr Chris Owers is an environmental scientist and specialist in spatial science at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Chris’ research involves developing transformative technology to enable rapid response to ecosystem change for more effective and efficient management. His current research projects are focussed on vegetated coastal landscapes and vegetation condition assessment from Earth observation data.

Dr. Yasumasa Hirata is senior researcher of Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, Japan. His main research field is forest remote sensing, particularly lidar remote sensing and forest carbon accounting and REDD+. His main target is tropical forests and he has managed projects of forest monitoring in Southeast Asia and South America. He was lead author of 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories and he was responsible for writing on wide-area carbon mapping and terrestrial lidar using remote sensing in it. He has contributed as a member of the Scientific Committee in past Silivilaser and ForestSAT. In particular, he chaired Silvlilaser 2006 in Japan.