Meet the Speakers

Meet the Voices of ISPRS 2026

We’re excited to introduce the first of our confirmed speakers for ISPRS 2026 - pioneers and thought leaders in photogrammetry, remote sensing, and spatial information sciences. These exceptional individuals will bring fresh insights and bold ideas to the stage.

Stay tuned as we continue to unveil more renowned voices from across the globe in the coming weeks.

Jun
Chen

Founding Director, Moganshan Geospatial Information Laboratory, Zhejiang Province, China Jun Chen currently serves as the founding Director of the newly established Moganshan Geospatial Information Laboratory. He is the Chief Scientist for Chinese National Geomatics Center and a Leading Scientist for Chinese Ministry of Land Resources, a member of Chinese Academy of Engineering, International Academy of Astronautics, and Euro-Asia Academy of Science. He is also an ISPRS honorary member, and a fellow of the International Scientific Council. Jun Chen has played a leading and instrumental role in developing the world’ first 30-meter resolution global land cover maps (GlobeLand30), covering the entire earth surface for the year 2000, 2010, and 2020. GlobeLand30 is freely available and has been utilized by the United Nations and over 140 countries. It was considered as “a milestone achievement in the Earth Observation and open geo-information access”. He has also led the development of the world’s first comprehensive measurement of progress toward SDGs at a county level by integrating geospatial and statistical information, which was selected as one of the United Nations’ first 16 good SDGs practices in 2020. In addition, he led the effort in developing and updating the national 1:50,000 geospatial database of China, which involves hundreds and thousands map sheets, putting China as one of the few countries of its size to complete and keep up-to-date national databases at such map scale. Jun Chen has made excellent scientific contributions to the field of surveying, mapping, and geo-informatics. He has led numerous research projects with many involving international collaboration and scientific policy development. He has over 400 scientific publications and his POK-based land cover mapping approach and Voronoi-based 9-intersection model for spatial relations have been widely referenced by peers. His achievements have been well recognized by many national, regional, and international awards, including 2015 World Geospatial Innovation Award for his contribution to Globaland30 and 2017 Asia Geospatial Life Time Achievement Award. He has been a frequent invited keynote speaker at national, regional and international scientific events and other venues. As the world-renowned scientist in geo-informatics, Jun Chen has served many international bodies to promote strategic, scientific, and practical developments in geospatial information science and services. He has been the Commission President, Congress Director, Secretary General, President, and Past President of ISPRS, leading the Society’s international cooperation in research, development, and education for the benefit of society and for environmental sustainability. Particularly, as the President of the society, he led the development of the scientific vision of information from imagery and preparation of ISPRS Beijing Declaration (2008) and Prague Declaration (2016). He has made outstanding contributions to supporting Future Earth with global geo-information and geospatial information enabling SDGs, by representing ISPRS at ISC, UN and GEO and through his active involvement in international working groups and task forces of UN-GGIM and GEO.

David Coleman

Professor Emeritus PhD; P.Eng. Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering, University of New Brunswick Dr. David Coleman, P.Eng., is a retired Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering (GGE) at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). He spent 15 years in the Canadian geomatics industry as a project surveyor and engineer, then as an executive with one of Canada's largest digital mapping firms, and later as a partner in a land information management consulting firm. A past Chair of the GGE Department and also a past Dean of UNB's Faculty of Engineering, David has authored over 150 publications and reports dealing with land information policy development, geomatics operations management, geographic information standards and geospatial data infrastructure. In the past, David has served in such positions as President of the Canadian Institute of Geomatics, a member of the Mapping Sciences Committee of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and a member of research and advisory boards to public and private organizations in Canada and Australia. He is currently a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and Engineers Canada.

Marguerite Madden

Associate Director for Education and Outreach Center for Geospatial Research Department of Geography University of Georgia Marguerite Madden, is a Professor in the University of Georgia (UGA) Department of Geography. She was the Director of the UGA Center for Geospatial Research (CGR) for 20 years and is currently CGR Associate Director for Education and Outreach. She holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Biology from the State University of New York and Ph.D. in Ecology from the University of Georgia. Since the late 1970s, she has conducted research combining remote sensing and geospatial analyses with landscape ecology, particularly focused on human-animal-environment interactions. Joining the UGA-CGR in 1985, she helped to develop and analyze numerous multi-temporal and detailed vegetation databases for local, state and national conservation lands throughout the Southeastern United States. Dr. Madden is Past President of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and Editor of the 2009 ASPRS Manual of GIS. She served as the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Technical President of Commission IV, “Digital Mapping and Geodatabases” (2008-2012), ISPRS Council Second Vice President (2012-2016) and Treasurer of The ISPRS Foundation (2010-2022). She is an ASPRS and ISPRS Fellow and 2020 recipient of the ASPRS Lifetime Achievement Award. She is currently a member of the ASPRS and ISPRS Foundation Boards of Trustees, the Geographical and Geospaital Sciences Committee of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine and Lead Science Advisor for the Georgia Node of the NASA DEVELOP National Program since 2013.

Marc Pollefeys

Professor of Computer Science, ETH Zurich Director Spatial AI Lab, Microsoft Marc Pollefeys is a full professor in the Dept. of Computer Science of ETH Zurich since 2007 where he leads the Computer Vision and Geometry lab. He is also the director of the Microsoft Spatial AI Lab in Zurich, heading a team of scientists working on spatial perception algorithms for AI assistants and robotics. He was previously associated with the Dept. of Computer Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he started as an assistant professor in 2002 and became an associate professor in 2005. Before this he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, where he also received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1994 and 1999, respectively. His main area of research is computer vision, but he is also active in robotics, machine learning and computer graphics. One of his main research goals is to develop flexible approaches to capture visual representations of real world objects, scenes and events. Dr. Pollefeys has received several prizes for his research, including a Marr prize, an NSF CAREER award, a Packard Fellowship and a European Research Council Starting Grant. He is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed publications. He was the General Chair of ICCV 2019 and ECCV 2014 and Program Co-Chair for CVPR 2009. Prof. Pollefeys has served on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, the International Journal of Computer Vision and Foundations and Trends in Computer Graphics and Computer Vision. Several of Prof. Pollefeys’ advisees are now professors at universities in Europe, Asia and the United States. He is a fellow of the IEEE and ACM.

Alex
Miller

ESRI, Canada Founder and President Toronto, Ontario Chairman of the Planet in Focus Foundation Alex Miller is president and founder of Esri Canada, the leading geographic information system (GIS) company in Canada, founded in 1984. With more than 600 employees and privately owned, Esri Canada became a Platinum Club winner of Canada’s Best Managed Companies in 2019. Mr. Miller is a pioneer in transforming geography and mapping into a 21st-century digital tool used by millions around the world. His work has helped people see location as a unifying lens through which land and resources are understood. His contribution to the development and application of GIS to benefit society spans decades—from designing innovative land-related information systems in the 1980s to helping today’s communities create digital twins of real environments for better decision making. For his work, Mr. Miller has been named a URISA GIS Hall of Fame Laureate and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He has also received the University of New Brunswick’s Engineering Distinguished Alumni Award and has been inducted into UNB’s Engineering Wall of Fame. He is also a member of the board of directors of the Information Technology for European Advancement (ITEA), where he contributes his expertise in integrating information by location to address big issues including public safety, harmonized mobility and climate change. Mr. Miller is a past chair of the Geomatics Industry Association of Canada. He has also chaired the Natural Resources Canada Earth Sciences Sector Minister’s Advisory Committee, the Agriculture Canada Experimental Farm Advisory Council and was a member of the Government of Canada's Open Government Advisory Panel. An advocate for strengthening communities, Mr. Miller initiated The Community Map of Canada, a free, comprehensive map that is constantly updated with data from authoritative sources. The detailed national basemap fosters innovative applications that benefit society. His support in mapping the longest trail in the world, Trans Canada Trail, helps preserve Canadian heritage and makes the Great Trail more accessible to everyone. Passionate about using technology to promote environmental sustainability, Mr. Miller is Chairman of the Planet in Focus Foundation, which showcases outstanding films on environmental themes.

Minda Suchan

MDA Bio Coming Soon!

Xiaoxiang Zhu

Technical University of Munich Bio Coming Soon!

Michael
Daly

York University, Canada Bio Coming Soon!