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News & Events: School Surveying and Spatial Information Systems ... 2007 ... 2006 ... (2005-04) ...

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6 December 2007 -- a grant of approx. $1.1M to fund a 5-year series of research projects in imagery and spatial information was announced. The fund has contributions from the NSW Dept. of Lands, the CRC for Spatial Information, and the School of Surveying & SIS. Dr Linlin Ge has been appointed an Associate Professor to lead these projects.... see media release.

4-6 December 2007 -- The School hosted the very successful IGNSS2007 Symposium on GPS/GNSS on the UNSW campus, with SNAP Lab researchers authoring 41 papers. There were approximately 260 participants, 27% from overseas.

23 November 2007 -- Official launch of the "History of Surveying & SIS" book...photo gallery...download the Order Form...

Bruce Forster, Warwick Watkins, Mark Wainwright, Paul Compton

Girls of the SurvSoc2008: Bernice Sparkes, Alexandra Lyle, Narelle Underwood, Kate Fairlie

23 November 2007 -- Annual undergraduate thesis conference... click here to view student websites... photo gallery...

29 October 2007 -- As part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations the School hosted a "20/20 Cricket Match" with a team drawn from the current staff & students playing a team from the alumni. The staff/student team won (handsomely!?).

See full photo gallery ...

25 October 2007 -- The last SurvSoc BBQ of the year, attended by students, staff & members of the profession. A special thanks to our sponsors the Institution of Surveyors (NSW) and Xstrata ... photo gallery

13 October 2007 -- As part of the Golden Jubilee Celebrations staff & ex-staff of the School had a Harbour Cruise.

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2 & 4 October 2007 -- First year undergraduate students in GMAT1400 class on bushwalk in the Royal National Park. See full photo gallery ...

24 September 2007 -- Both ARC-Linkage grants - "Locating Interference to GPS: Protecting the World's Aircraft landing Systems" (CIs, Andrew Dempster & Asghar Tabatabaei) and "Measurement of Paddock Scale Pasture Biomass Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Remote Sensing" (CI, Linlin Ge) - were successful. Both commence in 2008, with over $350K funding per year for 3 years, and will support two new Postdoctoral researchers. This is the best performance in the Faculty. No other geomatics/surveying department in Australia received ARC-Linkage funding. In addition, an ARC-LIEF grant "High Resolution Airborne Radar for Environmental Research: Soil Moisture, Vegetation, Salinity and Terrain Mapping" (CIs, Linlin Ge & others) was also successful. Two ARC-Discovery grants were successful - "Dynamic Autonomous Integrity Monitoring and Prediction for Multi-Constellation Satellite Navigation Receivers" (CI, Jinling Wang) and "Environmental Geodesy: Variations of Sea Level and Water Storage in the Australian Region" (CIs, Chris Rizos & others at ANU, CUT, UTas).... see SNAP Lab 2007 news page...

1 September 2007 -- The annual UNSW "Courses & Careers Day" was supported by the School, at a Marquee outside the Electrical Engineering Building (UG students & staff chatting with passerbys), manning a desk in the Roundhouse (to answer questions about courses & uni), demonstrations of interactive Google Earth, and laser scanning demonstrations upstairs at the Roundhouse ("ICT Disciplines ").

See full photo gallery ...

22 June 2007 -- The annual MASH (Mapping & Surveying History) seminar was held at UNSW, as part of the School's Golden Jubilee celebrations... over 100 people attended and listened to a very interesting and entertaining all-day series of presentations... program... photo gallery

1 June 2007 -- Professor Chris Rizos, Head of the School of Surveying & Spatial Information Systems, was elected by the members of the council of national representatives of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) as Vice President, for a four year term effective from the close of the forthcoming General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophsyics, 2-13 July 2007, held in Perugia, Italy. Chris was Chair of the IAG's Commission 4 "Positioning & Applications" for the period 2003-2007.

The IAG is the international scientific body that promotes the work of geoscientists concerned with the size and shape of the earth, and its gravity field, and how they change with time. Geodesists are at the forefront of Global Change studies, such as measuring the rate of rise in sea level, the melting of glaciers and ice caps, the spatial and temporal variation in the water vapour content of the atmosphere, and changes in mass balance such as due to variations in atmospheric circulation and ground water storage, as well as measuring crustal dynamics associated with global tectonics, seismic activity and vulcanism. Furthermore, "geodesy" is the foundation upon which all surveying and mapping activity is based.

Chris is the second UNSW staff member to hold such a high post in the IAG. The late Professor Peter Angus-Leppan (the first Head of the School of Surveying) was IAG President for the period 1979-1983.

17 May 2007 -- Three graduate students, Bilal Amin, Weidong Ding & Faisal Khan, were selected winners of the U.S. Institute of Navigation's student scholarship to attend the world's premier GPS/GNSS conference, the 20th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of the US Institute of Navigation, ION-GNSS2007, Fort Worth, Texas, 25-28 September. These are the 21st, 22nd & 23rd US Institute of Navigation student prize/scholarships awarded to members of the SNAP Lab (the first being in 1988 to Bertrand Merminod, and the 2nd & 3rd to Shaowei Han in 1995 and again in 1996, the 4th to Lao-Sheng Lin in 1997, the 5th to Linlin Ge in 1999, the 6th & 7th to Liwen Dai and Horng-Yue Chen in 2000, the 8th & 9th to Clement Ogaja and Chon Satirapod in 2001, the 10th & 11th to Michael Moore and Hung-Kyu Lee in 2002, the 12th & 13th to Steve Hewitson and Volker Janssen in 2003, the 14th, 15th & 16th to Ravi Babu, Jean Li and Binghao Li in 2004, 18th & 19th to Michael Chang and Jack Wang in 2005, 20th to Asghar Tabatabaei in 2006).

A record 15 papers authored or co-authored by staff or students of the SNAP Lab were accepted for either oral presentations or as alternates within their sessions.

27 March 2007 -- One of the highlights of the School Year is the Graduation Dinner & Prizegiving which takes place on the evening of the graduation ceremony itself...

see full photo gallery of ceremony photos ...

see full photo gallery of grad dinner photos ...

The following prizes & scholarships were awarded to students and graduates of the school at the Graduation Dinner on 27 March 2007... download the Program ...

CO-OP Scholarship Winners: Belinda JACKSON & Aditya SHAHAPURKAR

RTA Scholarship Winner: Luke SHIELDS

The Association of Public Service Surveyors Prize, awarded to: Sian ELLIOTT

The George Bennett Millennium Prize, awarded to: Matthew COOPER

Sinclair Knight Merz Prize, awarded to: Ryan FIFIELD

AAMHatch Prize in Surveying & Spatial Information Systems, awarded to: Jason PHIPPS

E.G. Masters Memorial Prize, awarded to: Walter JOHANSEN

Board of Surveying and Spatial Information Medal, awarded to: Peter SMITH

The Consulting Surveyors NSW Prize in Land Development, awarded to: Peter SMITH

The Institution of Surveyors NSW Inc. Prize, awarded to: Walter JOHANSEN

Spatial Sciences Institute Prize for Photogrammety & Remote Sensing, awarded to: Walter JOHANSEN

R.S. Mather Memorial Prize, awarded to: Tristan YOLLAND

The Civilcad Prize, awarded to: Walter JOHANSEN

5 March 2007 -- First SurvSoc BBQ for the year, students, staff & members of the profession attended, with a special welcome to our first year students ... photo gallery

12-14 February 2007 -- Commemorative "Annual Research Seminars" ....speakers' program ...photo gallery(1)...photo gallery(2)...

Highlighted '50 years of postgraduate studies in the School of Surveying (and its successor departments)'. The education of Higher Degree research (PhD and Masters by Research) and coursework (M.Eng.Sc. and Grad.Dip.) students is one of the most impressive achievements of the School. There were "where are you now" presentations that showed our alumniÕs current activity. Also, special contributions from prominent Australian researchers were made. A "commemorative" Geodesy Session on 14 February looked back at Australian geodesy achievements and the role of the School.

Alumni and ex-staff who attended: Fritz Brunner, Bill Kearsley, Bruce Forster, Jean Rueger, Gary Jeffress, Martin Nix, Kurt Lambeck, Paul Tregoning, Richard Coleman, Rod Eckels, Rod MacLeod, HY Chen, HK Lee, David Lin, Benson Hung, Bill Hirst, David Lemon, Kim Mobbs, Linlin Ge, Volker Janssen, Greg Dickson, Doug Kinlyside, Roger Merritt, Don Grant, Bill Ely, Ramesh Govind, Harvey Mitchell.

24-25 January 2007 -- The Institution of Surveyors NSW's Australia Day Seminar was held in the Scientia building at UNSW on 24 and 25 January to coincide with and celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Surveying Program at the University of New South Wales. Over 200 surveyors from various parts of NSW attended the event.

Four students, Scott Allison, Owen Martin, Nur Fadhillah Norzahari and Peter Smith, presented their 2006 thesis topics to the gathering of surveyors. These students will be amongst the graduating class of 2007. Another student, Luke Spitzer, spoke of his monitoring surveys in the Lane Cove Tunnel and on other sites.

Professor Chris Rizos, Head of School, offered his thoughts to the audience on "Trends in Geopositioning for the Survey Industry" while in another session Professor John Trinder. a former Head of School, gave a presentation on "Recent Development in Digital Mapping Systems".

The Surveying Society, Survsoc, set up a display and sold memorabilia including polo shirts and caps to raise funds for the Society. Our thanks go to the Cumberland Group for their support and encouragement in this project. The merchandise will be on sale from Survsoc through this year. The ISNSW Young Surveyors Group also held a meeting on the campus and even though it was outside the academic year some students were available to attend the meeting.

The function was largely organised by the office of ISNSW and our thanks go to Terina, Vivienne and Natasha for their efforts that resulted in a most successful seminar.

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