Steven Ungar, Senior Research Scientist

GEST Research Group:

Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory

GSFC Code:

614.4

Mailing Address:

Hydrological and Biospheric Sciences
Building 33, Room C323
NASA GSFC, Code 614.4
Greenbelt, MD 20771 USA

Phone:

(301) 614-6674

Fax:

(301) 614-6695

Email:

stephen.ungar@nasa.gov

Most Recent Publication:

Research Interests:

Biography:

Although originally trained as an astrophysicist, Dr. Stephen G. Ungar has gained considerable experience in remote sensing of the earth's surface throughout his career. He was Director of the Earth Resources Program at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) from the program's inception in 1971 until its components were transferred to GSFC in 1982 as part of the refocusing of the GISS mission to Climate Research. During his tenure at GISS, he participated in the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE) and the AgRISTARS project. He was a member of the working group that helped define the spectral, spatial and radiometric characteristics for the first Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor. In subsequent years, Dr. Ungar has been heavily involved in major NASA remote sensing field programs, including the First ISLSCP Field Experiment (FIFE) and the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS). He was selected as one of nine American PIs to participate in the Soviet-sponsored FIFE follow-on experiment (KUREX) conducted at the Kursk Biospheric Sciences Preserve in the former Soviet Union. He has participated on both the MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST) and the MODIS Science Data Support Team (SDST). Dr Ungar served as the Earth-Observing 1 (EO-1) Mission Scientist from the mission's inception in 1996 until his retirement from NASA in April 2008. He also served as the Project Scientist for NASA's Morning Constellation, consisting of the Landsat-7, EO-1, SAC-C, and Terra satellites flying in formation. Dr. Ungar participates in many international venues and served as Chair of the Committee on Earth Observing Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Calibration and Validation (WGCV). He was an official delegate to the 2007 GEO Earth Summit in Cape Town, South Africa. Dr. Ungar currently serves Task Leader for the GEO Task on Data Quality Assurance across the 9 GEO Societal Benefit Areas. Dr. Ungar received the NASA Medal for Exceptional Achievement on December 4, 2002 in recognition of his role in advocating and maintaining high scientific standards resulting in data far surpassing the expectations of the user community for the EO-1 technology demonstration mission.