ISPRS Honorary Member

Armin Gruen

in 2008
 

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Professor Armin Grün has been recognised for his scientific work with the award of the Brock Gold Medal. He is awarded Honorary Membership for his scientific leadership over many years, contributing to the aims of ISPRS and for his work on ISPRS Working Groups, Commissions, Council and Committees over a period of 24 years. Armin served on a number of national and international scientific organisations. His major appointments were President of Commission V during 1988-1992, 2nd Vice President during 1992-1996, Chair of the Financial Committee during 1996-2000, and Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Committee since 2000.

His world-wide reputation earned him a number of very prestigious awards, including the Otto-von-Gruber Award (ISPRS, 1980), the Talbert Abrams Grand Trophy (ASPRS, 1985 and 1996), the Fairchild Award (ASPRS, 1995) and the U.V. Helava Award (ISPRS, 2000). He is an Honorary Member, Japanese Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, a Corresponding Member, German Geodetic Commission (DGK), and an Honorary Professor of Wuhan University and of Yunnan Normal University in Kunming.

ISPRS Honorary Member

John C. Trinder

in 2008
 

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Professor John Trinder has played a major role in the scientific and administrative activities of ISPRS over a period of more than 30 years. From as early as 1972, John became involved in ISPRS WG activities through Working Group VI/1 on Education and Research in the Oceania region and subsequently in 1976-1980 as a member of WGI/1. He became President of Commission I - Primary Data Acquisition from 1980-1984, Second Vice President from 1984-1988, Chair of the Financial Commission 1991-1992 and from 1992, he has taken leading roles in the administration of ISPRS as Treasurer, Secretary General, President and finally as First Vice President. He has served ISPRS as Commission President and in various Council positions for a total of 24 years.

During his period as President John Trinder led the revision of the structure of the Technical Commissions and their terms of reference, including introducing an eighth Commission, the first time the number of Commissions had been changed in ISPRS for 52 years. He also registered ISPRS as a not-for-profit corporation in Maryland USA, thus formalizing the legal status of the Society.

John Trinder has won a number of awards including the Grand Trophy of Talbert Abrams Award of American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing on two occasions, the James Kirkwood Curdie Prize awarded by the Institution of Surveyors, NSW Division (Australia), “For His Forward Looking Approach to the Future of Our Profession” in 1998 and the Eminent Persons Award from the Spatial Sciences Institute of Australia in 2004.

ISPRS Honorary Member

Li Deren

in 2012
 

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Professor Dr. Li Deren, scientist in photogrammetry and remote sensing, holds dual membership in both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, is member of the Euro-Asia International Academy of Science, and honorary doctor of ETH Zürich. At present, he is Professor and PhD supervisor of Wuhan University, Vice-President of the Chinese Society of Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography, Vice-president of Hubei Association for Science and Technology (HAST), Chair of the Academic Committee of Wuhan University and the State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS).

In the 1980s, Professor Li Deren was mainly engaged in the studies of observation errors and processing methods in geodesy and photogrammetry. In 1985, he completed theoretical research in the separability of model errors, which advanced the reliability theory to the separability phase. The result of this study received the 1988 Best Paper Award of the German Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and Hansa Luftbild Award. From 1990 up to now Professor Li has concentrated on the research and education in geo-spatial information science and technology represented by remote sensing (RS), global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS).

Since 1989 Professor Li Deren has supervised 170 PhD students and 18 postdoctoral candidates. He has published over 709 papers and 11 books. He won one prize of the National Great Invention Award, three prizes of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, one prize of the National Excellent Textbook Award and one prize of the Award of the Excellent Educational Achievements.

Professor Li Deren served as President of ISPRS Technical Commissions III and VI from 1988-1992 and 1992-1996 respectively. He worked for CEOS in 2002-2004 and was the first President of Asia GIS Association (2003-2006). He received the Samuel G. Gamble Award at the ISPRS XXI Congress in 2008 and received an award in appreciation and recognition of the outstanding contribution to the success and achievements of the MOST/ESA Dragon Programme 2004 to 2007. Since 2010 he is ISPRS Fellow.

Li Deren is nominated as an Honorary Member for distinguished service to ISPRS and for his contribution to the science of photogrammetry, remote sensing and spatial information science in China and internationally.

ISPRS Honorary Member

Ian Dowman

in 2012
 

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Emeritus Professor Ian Dowman is nominated for Honorary Membership of ISPRS in recognition of his long and distinguished services to ISPRS and its aims. Ian has held many roles and responsibilities within the Society, up to and including the office of President. Ian’s contribution has been not only as an Officer of the Society; he has also made a significant research contribution to diverse ISPRS Commissions and Working Groups throughout his career, which has covered major developments in both photogrammetry and remote sensing and in the synergy between them. He has also participated in many other events in which he had no direct leadership role. Ian’s proactive approach has ensured that the Society has turned many of these changes to its advantage.

Ian has had a very distinguished academic career at University College London (UCL). He gained his formal academic qualifications at UCL, completing a BSc in Geography, and a Diploma and PhD in Photogrammetry. After a short period working as a survey practitioner in Australia, he returned to UCL where he has held many academic positions including Dean of Engineering. From 1991 to 2008 he was Professor of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, a clear mark of the University authorities’ recognition of his ability as a teacher as well as his contribution to the international research community in these fields.

Besides a sustained involvement with ISPRS, Ian has found time to make a significant contribution to organisations in the UK Including the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), the Photogrammetric Society he was President, and he was elected an Honorary Member in 1999. Ian has also been Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Organisation Européenne d'Etudes Photogrammétriques Expérimentales (OEEPE, now EuroSDR, a Regional Member of ISPRS). He has been awarded many honours for his work. Such a distinguished and sustained international contribution in support of the activities and aims of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing is presented as being worthy of Honorary Membership of ISPRS.

ISPRS Honorary Member

Orhan Altan

in 2016
 

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Orhan Altan is nominated for Honorary Membership of ISPRS in recognition of his long and distinguished service to ISPRS and its aims. Orhan Altan first made his mark on ISPRS as Congress Director in 2004 and has since held many roles and responsibilities within the Society including President from 2008- 2012. The year 2010 was the centennial anniversary of ISPRS and Orhan Altan played a major role in organising the celebration of this event.

Orhan Altan has introduced a number of important initiatives into ISPRS including the establishment of the Student Consortium which laid the basis for attracting more young scientists into the society; he was instrumental in setting up an agree-ment to have the ISPRS proceedings published in a professional way and has thus provided the necessary quality of these proceedings to be included into major in-dexing databases such as the Web of Science and SCOPUS; he has worked with the Joint Board of Geospatial Societies (JBGIS) and the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs to produce booklets on the value of geospatial information for disaster management.

Orhan Altan has represented ISPRS on many international bodies including the International Council for Science (ICSU) and has served on the Executive board of ICSU which has raised the recognition and standing of ISPRS internationally. Orhan Altan’s contribution has been not only as an officer of the Society, he has also made a significant research contribution to ISPRS Commissions and Working Groups throughout his career, which has covered major developments in both pho-togrammetry and remote sensing.

Outside of ISPRS, Orhan Altan has had a distinguished academic career as a pro-fessor of photogrammetry at the Istanbul Technical University and has an exten-sive list of refereed publications and conference papers. Orhan Altan is fluent in English and German, as well as Turkish and this has enabled him to build bridges across Europe and Asia. His contribution to the development and long term sustainability of ISPRS and his distinguished academic achievements combined with his diplomacy and charm, make Orhan Altan a very deserving candidate for election as an ISPRS Honorary Member.

ISPRS Honorary Member

JUN Chen

in 2020
 

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Chen Jun had first contacts with ISPRS as early as 1982, when he participated in the Technical Commission VII Symposium in Toulouse, France, where he spent time as a young scientist with IGN and CNES. Later Chen Jun was elected president of Technical Commission II, entitled “Systems for Data Processing, Analysis and Representation” at the time, and was responsible for the Symposium in Xian in 2002.

During the 2004 Congress in Istanbul China was elected to host the XXI Congress, and Chen Jun became Congress Director, organising a very successful ISPRS Congress in Beijing in 2008 and has since served on ISPRS Council, as Secretary General from 2008 - 2012, leading the society as president from 2012 - 2016, a period which included the reorganization of the ISPRS Technical Commissions, in which he had a major share; and as Past President since 2016. He initiated the ISPRS research agenda which was published in the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing in 2016; initiated financial support for authors of open access papers who cannot afford the related Author Processing Charges; has represented ISPRS at the level of international geospatial societies such as those grouped in the Joint Board of Geospatial Societies (JBGIS) - now renamed to UN GGIM Geospatial Societies; has represented ISPRS at numerous UN and GEO meetings, e.g. the yearly UN GGIM meetings in New York and the various GEO plenaries around the world; has represented ISPRS in the International Science Council (ISC) and has made sure ISPRS keeps its reputation of a respectable scientific society.

With his charming and diplomatic personality and his dedication to the aims and the activities of the society, Chen Jun truly deserves to be elected an ISPRS Honorary Member.

ISPRS Honorary Member

Charles Toth

in 2026
 

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Charles Toth is a Research Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering at The Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, where he directs the Center for Accurate Georeferencing the Environment (CAGE), an NSF- and industry-sponsored three-university consortium, and also serves as the director of the Satellite Positioning and Inertial Navigation Laboratory (SPIN Lab). He is a world-renowned expert in photogrammetry, geomatics, positioning and navigation, sensors, and mobile mapping technologies.Throughout his esteemed career, he has been deeply committed to supporting ISPRS, beginning in 1990 when he attended his first ISPRS Symposium. Starting from 1996, he chaired several working groups over multiple terms, later serving as President of Technical Commission I, Sensors and Platforms for Remote Sensing (2012–2016), and as Vice President of ISPRS (2016–2022). He currently chairs ISAC, the ISPRS International Science Advisory Committee. Over more than 30 years of exceptional service to the Society, his leadership, combined with his outstanding scientific contributions to the field, has earned him the highest respect within the ISPRS community. He is also one of the founding members of Mobile Mapping Technology (MMT), and since the mid-1990s he has been involved in organizing all of the biennial International Symposia on MMT, most often under the umbrella of ISPRS.He first came to The Ohio State University in 1987, joining the OSU Center for Mapping as a postdoctoral researcher. In the years that followed, he was at the forefront of research on emerging digital imaging technologies and became the key architect behind the concept development and implementation of the first Mobile Mapping System (MMS), one of the earliest civilian applications of the Global Positioning System (GPS). In the late 1990s, he led an Ohio State research team in the ground-breaking Airborne Integrated Mapping System (AIMS) project, which produced the world’s first fully digital, directly georeferenced, high-accuracy airborne mapping system prototype. The system integrated a 4K × 4K digital camera with GPS and an inertial navigation unit (IMU) in a tightly coupled configuration. This technology saw its first major commercial deployment during the Ground Zero emergency mapping operations following the September 11, 2001 attack in New York City, providing critical feedback that helped refine the entire workflow. He also served as the lead mapping expert supporting navigation assisted by mapping technologies for the OSU team in the three DARPA Grand and Urban Challenges, the landmark events that launched the autonomous-driving era. He was an early advocate for leveraging complex geospatial data, such as terrain models and imagery, to enhance vehicle navigation, improve localization, and strengthen scene understanding. This work helped lay the foundation for modern HD (high definition) maps, now essential components of assisted and autonomous driving technologies. To this day, he is recognized worldwide for his contributions to advancing MMS technology and its applications, and he is widely credited with coining the terms “direct” and “indirect” georeferencing.He has an extensive publication record with more than 450 scientific papers to his name and has supervised a large number of master’s and Ph.D. students at both OSU and BME. He has received numerous prestigious awards, including the ASPRS Fairchild Award (2009), Fellowship of ASPRS (2019), Fellowship of ISPRS (2020), Fellowship of the Institute of Navigation (2022), an Honorary Doctorate from BME (2023), and the ASPRS Lifetime Achievement Award (2025).