Crystal Schaaf is a Professor Emeritus and Research Professor in the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She works on the development of operational albedo and surface anisotropy products as a science team member for NASA's MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) which monitors the Earth's environment from the Terra and Aqua polar-orbiting space platforms. She is also a science team member for the Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the NOAA/NASA Suomi National Polar orbiting Partnership (NPP) and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) instruments (currently NOAA-20 and NOAA-21). She is also a science team member for the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on board the USGS/NASA Landsat-8/9 satellite platforms, and a collaborator for the NASA Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) space based lidar mission on the International Space Station (ISS). Her research interests include modeling reflectance anisotropy and albedo, using remote sensing data to monitor the reflective character of various land surfaces, to monitor vegetation disturbance and phenology, to model carbon fluxes from land to water, and to use remotely-sensed anisotropy and albedo products in climate and biogeochemical models. She has also been active in the use of terrestrial, airborne, and spaceborne lidar systems to reconstruct vegetation biomass and structure. Website: http://www.umb.edu/spectralmass

Dr Michael Watt is a Principal Scientist who specialises in remote sensing and development of models to characterise growth, health and wood quality of the forest resource. He has published over 190 refereed papers around these and other topics within forestry. Michael works extensively with the New Zealand forest industry and has a track record of undertaking science that has been adopted by the industry. He is co-leader of the Remote Sensing cluster group which is one of the most well attended industry focus groups within the New Zealand forestry sector. Michael has many international links with other research groups in Europe, Australia and South America.