This award seeks students from all academic levels to submit illustrated papers in AAG that advance remote sensing and/or GIS. Research must have been completed within the past academic year as part of the applicant’s undergraduate or graduate studies. Illustrated papers must be created entirely by the applicant. While papers may include co-authors, the applicant must be primarily responsible for the research presented. Students selected as finalists will be placed in a special illustrated paper session at the AAG Annual Meeting. First, second, and third place awards will be determined immediately following the competition sessions and awarded at the Awards Luncheon. Cash prizes are provided to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers! The first place award will be presented at the AAG Annual Awards Luncheon and the luncheon fee will be covered for the first place winner.
2025 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Tianze Li, University at Buffalo, Assessment of the applicability of two spatiotemporal fusion models for refined mapping of a highly invaded mangrove forest
2nd place: Austin D Cox and Sabrina Wolf, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Comparison of vegetation indices to identify phenological events in deciduous forests
3rd place: Shelby Paluch and Ashton Albrecht, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Phenological changes in Wisconsin deciduous forests
2024 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Aiyin Zhang, Clark University, Data quality assessment of loss and gain of a land category during a time series
2nd place: Jing Miao, State University of New York at Buffalo, Leveraging Phenological Information from HLS Satellite Imagery for Mangrove Species Mapping in Florida
3rd place: Ji Jin Chen, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, CropSync: towards a large-scale operational framework for within-season crop type mapping using Google Street View and Harmonized Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery
2023 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Zhe Wang, University of Idaho, A novel deep learning based framework for land cover classification in urban areas
2nd place: Yang Li, Ohio State University, Detecting breakpoints in multispectral time series – a multivariate algorithm
3rd place: Ma Yue, SUNY Buffalo, Forecasting vegetation dynamics in an open ecosystem by integrating deep learning and environmental variables
2022 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Yin Liu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, CropSow: a novel modeling framework to estimate field-level crop sowing date with multi-scale satellite time series
2nd place: Shuyu Y Chang, Pennsylvania State University, The Application of Remote Sensing and Machine Learning to Improve Early Warning Systems for Harmful Algal Events in the Highland Lake Chains, TX
3rd place: Claire Wang, Clark University, Quantifying the Time Series Pattern of a Binary Variable: Land Change Across 36 Years in Brazil
2020 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Yanzhe Yin, University of Georgia, Identifying Urban Heat Vulnerability by integrating Foot-Traffic information with Remote Sensed Temperature.
2nd place: Thomas M. Bilintoh, Clark University, Methods to compare cases concerning categorical transitions during various time intervals
3rd place: Kayla J. Bradford, University of Wisconsin – Whitewater, Remote sensing of the urban heat island effect in Wisconsin
2019 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Abhishek Kumar, University of Georgia, Cyanotracker: A multi-cloud cyber infrastructure for monitoring global proliferation of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms
2nd place: Sam Khallaghi, Clark University, Baseline & Transect method compared to Polygon Overlay method to measure boundary change
3rd place: Geyang Li, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Near-Surface and High Resolution Satellite Remote Sensing Time Series for Understanding Crop Phenological Responses to Climate Change
2018 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Yang Liu, University of Cincinnati; Spatial-temporal evolution of shale oil development in the Marcellus Shale in the past century.
2nd place: Rachel Snavely, San Diego State University; Mapping vegetation community types in a highly-disturbed landscape: integrating hierarchical object-based image analysis with digital surface models.
3rd place: Xinghe Liu, State University of New York at Buffalo; Inversion of Mangrove Forest Leaf Area Index Using Consumer Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.
2017 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Qiuyan Yu, University of South Florida; Understanding association between land surface temperature variation, and tree biophysical and biochemical properties for urban heat island studies/assessment using LiDAR and Landsat TM.
2nd place: Molly Smith, Florida Atlantic University; Sand Analysis Using a Combined Spectroscopic and Microscopic Technique.
3rd place: David O’Brien, Clark University; GIS Validation for projects to Reduce Emissions due to Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD)
2016 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st place: Laurel Ballanti, San Francisco State University; Tree Species Classification Using Hyperspectral Imagery in Muir Woods National Monument and Kent Creek Canyon, California.
2nd place: Fang Fang, West Virginia University; Discriminating tree species using crown-scale measurements: fusing leaf-on LiDAR and high-resolution multi-spectral satellite data.
3rd place: Kyle Mullen: Minnesota State University-Mankato; Early Detection of Mountain Pine Beetle Attacked Trees using WorldView-2 Imagery and Field data.
2015 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st Place: Mengyao Zhang, University of Connecticut; Application of Using Google Direction API to Support GIS in Transit Time Calculation: A Case Study of Food Access Analysis in Hartford, Connecticut.
2nd Place: Shujie Wang, University of Cincinnati; Investigation of the flow dynamics of the rapidly retreating ice shelves, Antarctica.
3rd Place: Rebecca Chapman, Clark University; Algorithm to measure differences between maps of a continuous variable.
2014 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st Place: Andrew Thorpe, University of California, Santa Barbara; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology; Mapping and quantifying methane emissions using airborne imaging spectroscopy (Award prize = $500).
2nd Place: Panshu Zhao, Texas A&M University, College Station; Integration of spectral and topographic information into an analytical reasoning model to map debris-covered glaciers in the Karakoram Himalaya (Award prize = $250).
3rd Place: Yan Huang, East China Normal University; Derivation of split-window algorithm for Landsat-8 dual channel thermal images and its application to spatial pattern analysis of water temperatures of Arctic lakes (Award prize = $150).
2013 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st Place: Thomas O’Connell, Salem State University, “No More Hidden Secrets: Human Rights Violations and Remote Sensing” (Award prize = $500).
2nd Place: Laura Hansen, Clark University, “Comparison of metrics to measure land change model performance across various REDD projects” (Award prize = $250).
3rd Place: Xianonan Tai, University at Buffalo, “Validating habitat suitability model with remote sensing-derived species fractions: Using Invasive Tamarisk as an example” (Award prize = $150).
2012 RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
1st Place: Andrew Shatz, Clark University, Creating and Analyzing a Time Series of Species Distribution Models: Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) in Worchester County, MA (Award prize = $500).
2nd Place: Marion Clement & Kae Yamane, Rutgers University, The Shantytown Mapping Project: Google Earth in the Study of Urban Shantytowns (Award prize = $250).
3rd Place: Shanshan Cai, Department of Geography, The Ohio State University, Combing Object-based Classification Approach with Pixel-based Contextual Classification on Airborne High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery (Award prize = $150).
2011 Remote Sensing/GIS/Cartography Student Illustrated Paper Awards
1st Place
Candice Luebbering (Virginia Technological University)
“Visualizing linguistic diversity through cartography”
Prize: $500.00
2nd Place
Harini Sridharan (University of Texas-Dallas)
“Expectation-Maximization based Dasymetric Mapping of Population at building-level”
Prize: $250.00
3rd Place
Sarah Geise (Carthage College)
“Measuring Suburban Sprawl and Land Cover in Boston’s Northern Suburbs”
Prize: $150.00
2010 Remote Sensing/GIS/Cartography Student Illustrated Paper Awards
First Place
Moumita Duttagupta, Salem State College
Prize: $500
Second Place
Yuji Zhang, Clark University
Prize: $250
Third Place
Jenner Alpern, Clark University
Prize: $150
2009 Remote Sensing/GIS/Cartography Student Illustrated Paper Awards
First Place
Robert Roth, Pennsylvania State University
“Geographic Disparities in U.S. Cervical Can cer Mortality, 2000-2004.”
Second Place
Mary Lindsey, University of Maryland
“Impact of Clouds on Later-Season Agricultural Land Cover Classification in Kentucky.”
Third Place
Prajna Regmi, Clark University
“Indian Ocean Dipole-Relationship with El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Teleconnectors in South Asia.”
2008 RSSG/GISSG/CSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
First Place
Alicia Simonti (Clark University)
Presentation Title: Image Time Series Analysis of SeaWIFS Ocean Color Product for the Investigation of Ocean Chlorophyll Dynamics
Prize: $500
Second Place
Oh Seok Kim (Clark University)
Presentation Title: Contribution of GIScience to Carbon Credit Estimation
Prize: $300
Third Place
Bardan Ghimire (Clark University)
Presentation Title: Incorporating spatial dependence in random forest classification models
Prize: $200
2007 RSSG/GISSG/CSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition
First Place
Joseph Fortier – Clark University
Presentation Title: A comparison of Machine Learning Algorithms: The Effects of Classification Scheme Detail on Map Accuracy
Prize: $500
Second Place
Karen Culcasi – Syracuse University
Presentation Title: Cartography and the Construction of the “Middle East”
Prize: $300
Third Place
Aude Esperbé – San Diego State University
Presentation Title: A High-Resolution Self-Organizing Map Based on Physical and Human Attributes of Geographic Space
Prize: $200
Honorable Mentions
Evan Martzial – Salem State College
Presentation Title: Analyzing the 2006 Oil Spill off of Lebanese Coast
Prize: ESRI ArcGIS License
James Langill – Salem State College
Presentation Title: A Tale of two fires. A Comparison of the Mann Gulch and Storm King Mountain (South Canyon) fires
Prize: Prentice Hall World Atlas
Devin Dworkin – Salem State College
Presentation Title: An Urbanization Analysis and growth projection of greater Guangzhou City, Guangdong, China, 1990, 2000 and 2010
Prize: Prentice Hall World Atlas
John Raymond, Sr. – Salem State College
Presentation Title: Using LIDAR to measure roof areas in hurricane prone regions
Prize: ESRI Press GIS A to Z Illustrated Dictionary
2006 RSSG/GISSG/CSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
First Place
Jessica McCarty – University of Maryland at College Park
Presentation Title: Agricultural Burning in the Southeastern United States Detected by MODIS
Prize: $500 and ESRI ArcGIS 9.1 license
Second Place
John Connors – Clark University
Presentation Title: Quantifying categorical associations using sub-pixel mapping
Prize: $250 and ESRI ArcGIS 9.1 license
Third Place
Jason Knowles – Louisiana State University
Presentation Title: Visual representations of the spatial correlation between Bermuda High strengths and tropical cyclone tracks
Prize: $150 and ESRI ArcGIS 9.1 license
2005 Cartography/GIS/RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
First Place
Stephen David Gardner – Pennsylvania State University (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Map-Use Testing of the Color Brewer Color Schemes for Accommodation of the Color-Vision Impaired.
Second Place
Jian Liu – University Of Wisconsin (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Mapping with Words for Knowledge-based Natural Resource Mapping.
Third Place (Tie)
Shuo-Sheng Derek Wu – Texas State University (Presenter)
Presentation Title: An Improved Dasymetric Mapping Method for Remodeling Census Populations.
Amy Norman – University of Texas at Austin (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Multi-temporal Characterization of Land Use/Land Cover in Iquitos, Peru.
Undergraduate
Michelle Roy – Salem State College (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Change in NDVI Over Australian Land Cover from 1999 to 2003.
2004 Cartography/GIS/RSSG Student Illustrated Paper Competition Winners
First Place
Erik Strandhagen – University of Oregon (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Views of the rivers; representing hydrological data of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
Second Place
Carl J. Legleiter – University of California Santa Barbara (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Remote mapping and geostatistical analysis of river channel morphology and change in Yellowstone National Park.
Third Place
Christopher Zanger – Oregon State University (Presenter)
Presentation Title: Ecoregion delineation: using a GIS to identify and model the dominant ecoregion variables in Southern Oregon / Northern California.