Russell G. Congalton is Professor of Remote Sensing and GIS in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire.  He is responsible for teaching courses in geospatial analysis including The Science of Where, Remote Sensing, Photogrammetry and Image Interpretation, Digital Image Processing, and Geographic Information Systems.  Russ has authored or coauthored more than 200 papers and conference proceedings.  His papers have won awards seven times including: 1994 ASPRS John I. Davidson Award for Practical Papers (2nd Prize), 1996 ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper in Geographic Information Systems (3rd Prize), 1998 ASPRS John I. Davidson Award for Practical Papers (1st Prize), 1998 ESRI Award for Best Scientific Paper in Geographic Information Systems (2nd Prize), 2014 ERDAS Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing (3^rd Prize), and 2016 ERDAS Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing (1st Prize) .  He is the author of thirteen book chapters, co-editor of a book on spatial uncertainty in natural resource databases titled, Quantifying Spatial Uncertainty in Natural Resources: Theory and Applications for GIS and Remote Sensing, and is co-author of five books including the book,  Assessing the Accuracy of Remotely Sensed Data: Principles and Practices (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd editions published by CRC Press and Imagery and GIS: Best Practices for Extracting Information from Imagery, published by ESRI in 2017.  Russ served as President of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) in 2004-2005, as the National Workshop Director for ASPRS from 1997 – 2008, and as Editor-in-Chief of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing from 2008 – 2016.  He was elected a Fellow in 2007 and an Honorary Member in 2016.  In 2005, Dr. Congalton was awarded the inaugural Graduate Faculty Mentor Award from the University of New Hampshire for his dedication to graduate education and his graduate students.  He has served as primary mentor and advisor for 60 graduate students during his career.

Education 

Dr. Congalton received a B.S. (Natural Resource Management) from Rutgers University in 1979. He earned an M.S. (1981) and a Ph.D. (1984) in remote sensing and forest biometrics from Virginia Tech.  In addition to his academic position, Russ served as Chief Scientist of Pacific Meridian Resources from its founding in 1988 until 2000 and then as Chief Scientist of Space Imaging Solutions from 2000 – 2004.  From 2004 until 2015, Russ held the position of Senior Technical Advisor with the Solutions Group of Sanborn, the oldest mapping company in the US.  Dr. Congalton was the Remote Sensing/Land Cover Principal Investigator of the NSF GLOBE Program, a scientist-teacher-student environmental education and research partnership involving over 100 countries and 15,000 schools from 1995 - 2007.  Much of the work in this project focused on developing scientific protocols and learning activities for student understanding of land cover mapping and remote sensing.  Currently, he is the director of New Hampshire View – a part of the AmericaView Consortium dedicated to promoting the use of remote sensing and other geospatial technologies throughout the US and has served as member, secretary, vice-chair, and chair of the AmericaView Board of Directors.