Distributed Sensors Workshop - Keynote Speakers | SWAN: Sensor Web Automation Network

We are fortunate to have the following keynote speakers share their internationally recognized perspectives and experience with us during the morning presentations and panel discussions:

Mr. Johannes Echterhoff, Project Manager, International Geospatial Services Institute GmbH and SWE Software Architect, 52°North
Mr. Echterhoff's Keynote Perspective (PDF format)
Mr. Echterhoff's Keynote Presentation Slides (PDF format)

Dr. Gregory Pottie, Deputy Director, Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS), University of California - Los Angeles
Dr. Pottie's Keynote Perspective (PDF format)
Dr. Pottie's Keynote Presentation Slides (PDF format)

Mr. George Percivall, Chief Architect and Executive Director of Interoperability Program, Open Geospatial Consortium
Mr. Percivall's Keynote Perspective (PDF format)
Mr. Percivall's Keynote Presentation Slides (PDF format)

Dr. Aman Kansal, Researcher, Networked Embedded Computing Group, Microsoft Research
Dr. Kansal's Keynote Presentation Slides (PDF format)

Mr. Johannes Echterhoff is Project Manager at the International Geospatial Services Institute GmbH and software architect of 52°North's SWE Community. He is also a member of the Sensor Web Alliance (SWA), a community of researchers involved in various aspects of Sensor Web research and development. Mr. Echterhoff received his Diploma in Geoinformatics from the University of Münster and is currently working in the area of Spatial Event Stream Processing and Event Driven Spatial Data Infrastructures.

Mr. Echterhoff is an active member of the Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) working group at the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). He has distinguished expertise in the development of encodings and service interfaces for Sensor Webs. He accompanied the OGC Interoperability Program and is (co-) editor of several OGC standards. He has been involved in several OGC testbed initiatives and contributed to the development of all current SWE specifications. Mr. Echterhoff participated in a number of research projects, one of which is the European Union research project OSIRIS that addresses Sensor Web concepts and architectures for Risk and Crisis Management.

Dr. Gregory Pottie is the Deputy Director of the NSF-sponsored science and technology Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS). CENS pursues deployments of sensor networks for such applications as terrestrial ecology, marine microbiology, seismology and contaminant transport in ground water with the goals of both advancing basic science and in transforming the theory and practice of sensor networks. Whereas in early DoD-sponsored research the basic questions concerned autonomy, scaling to large numbers, and low energy operation, in science applications by contrast interactivity, appropriate sampling given model certainty (including the use of mobility), and reliability of inferences become the top priority. Even for scaling to large numbers in urban or community sensing applications using mobile phones as the sensor platforms, similar concerns dominate.

Dr. Pottie received his B.Sc. in Engineering Physics from Queen's University in 1984, and his M.Eng. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from McMaster University in 1985 and 1988 respectively. From 1989 to 1991 he worked in the transmission research department of Motorola/Codex in Canton MA, with projects related to voice band modems and digital subscriber lines. Since 1991 he has been a faculty member of the UCLA Electrical Engineering Department, serving in vice-chair roles from 1999-2003. Since 2003 he has also served as Associate Dean for Research and Physical Resources of the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. His research interests include reliable communications, wireless communication systems, and wireless sensor networks. His current focus is on the information theory of sensor networks and cognitive radios. From 1997 to 1999 he was secretary to the board of governors for the IEEE Information Theory Society. In 1998 he received the Allied Signal Award for outstanding faculty research for UCLA engineering. In 2005 he became a Fellow of the IEEE for contributions to the modeling and applications of sensor networks.

Mr. George Percivall is OGC's Chief Architect and Executive Director of OGC's Interoperability Program. He has been contributing to OGC's Sensor Web Enablement, or SWE, since the initial developments in 2000. Under his direction the SWE standards were implemented and refined through multiple OGC interoperability initiatives including collaborartion with other standards bodies, such as ISO and IEEE. Previously, George had leadership roles on several NASA programs including GOESS weather satellites and the Earth Observing System. He holds a BS in Engineering Physics and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois - Urbana.

Dr. Aman Kansal is a Researcher with the Networked Embedded Computing group at Microsoft Research. The Networked Embedded Computing group advances the state of the art in embedded sensor networks through conducting fundamental research, developing new industrial applications, and supporting collaborative research through university grant proposal funding, releasing software and hardware toolkits for research use, and organizing research workshops. Dr. Kansal's research has focused on several aspects of sensor networks including low power operation, environmental energy harvesting, efficient wireless communication, embedded actuation and mobility, and mobile phone based sensing. His research prototypes in these areas have been recognized through design contest awards at international conferences, and are being used by academic and industrial researchers in several countries. The SenseWeb system developed by Dr. Kansal and his collaborators is used by scientists, researchers, and educators to share several thousand sensors deployed by government agencies and academic institutions across four continents, in a map-based interface. Dr. Kansal holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from University of California Los Angeles, and his dissertation work was honored with the department's Outstanding PhD Award.