EROS & SDSU — 50 years of collaboration

SDSU formed its Remote Sensing Institute in 1969, EROS Data Center near Baltic opened in August 1973, and a year later EROS began a cooperative education program agreement with SDSU to place students in work assignments paired with classroom studies. 

In the past 50 years, the connections between the university and the Earth Resources Observation and Science Center have been deeply intertwined. The relationship that began with Dennis Helder, Mary O’Neill and June Thormosgard has continued through today’s group of collaborators, which is led at SDSU by Larry Leigh, director of the SDSU Image Processing Lab.

Leigh began working at the lab in fall 1999 as he finished his master’s degree and became the director with Helder’s retirement in June 2019.

“The strong relationship between SDSU and EROS has been very enjoyable and beneficial to our students,” Leigh said.

“We are able to train the next generation of satellite calibration and validation engineers, working on real-world problems for real customers. Our students can be found at EROS in the Cal/Val group, where the number of students from SDSU represents a significant portion of the group, but you will also find them at NASA and numerous commercial programs around the USA.

“I believe the reason our students are sought after is due to our strong partnership with USGS EROS and the fact students actually ‘play with’ real data and work real problems,” Leigh said.

This article from the U.S. Geological Survey looks at the history. 

To listen to a 19-minute podcast with Helder, O’Neill and EROS host Jane Lawson.

To read about Leigh’s history with EROS and the lab’s ongoing work.

The latest news on the Image Processing Lab.