Invited Speakers

Fundamentals and Applications of New Developments in Holography in the Ocean Science

Speaker: John Samson
Institution: Research Scientist 4DEEP Imaging
Date: September 16th, 2015, 09:00h-09:45h

CV: John has been working in various sciences for a decade, from biology and fabrication, to acoustics and optics. He has a degree in physics from Dalhousie University, and has worked under Dr. Kreuzer and Dr. Jericho in holography. John works directly with clients of 4Deep and the product development team to establish usage methods for the microscopes, and to adapt both the products and methodologies to meet industry needs.

Space: The Next frontier in inter-disciplinary Ocean Sciences

Speaker: Kanna Rajan
Institution: University of Porto
Date: September 17th, 2015, 11:00h-11:30h

CV: Kanna is a Visiting Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Univ. of Porto affiliated with the Underwater Systems Technology Lab. Till recently he was the Principal Researcher in Autonomy at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (http://www.mbari.org). Prior to that he was a Senior Research Scientist for the Autonomous Systems and Robotics Area at NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, California. At NASA Ames, he was the Principal Investigator of the MAPGEN Mixed-Initiative Planning effort to command and control the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on the surface of the Red Planet. MAPGEN was awarded NASA's 2004 Turning Goals into Reality award under the Administrators Award category, a NASA Space Act Award, a NASA Group Achievement Award and a NASA Ames Honor Award Prior to joining NASA Ames, he was in the doctoral program at the NYU Courant Institute of Math Sciences. He was at the Knowledge Systems group at American Airlines, helping build a Maintenance Routing scheduler.

Kanna is the recipient of the 2002 NASA Public Service Medal and the First NASA Ames Information Directorate Infusion Award also in 2002. In Oct 2004, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory awarded him the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his role on the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. He was the Co-chair of the 2005 International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling (ICAPS), Monterey California and till recently the chair of the Executive Board of the International Workshop on Planning and Scheduling for Space. He continues to serve on review panels for NASA, the Italian Space Agency and European Space Agency and the US National Science Foundation.