Taeyoung Choi received a B.S. degree from Konkuk University, Seoul, South Korea, in 1999; an M.S. degree in electrical engineering from South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD, USA, in 2002; and a Ph.D. from George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA, in 2018. He is currently working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through a contracting company, where he specializes in radiometric calibrations for Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-20 (NOAA-20), and NOAA-21 Visible Infrared-Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instruments using Solar Diffuser (SD) and moon observations. Before his role at NOAA, he contributed to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST), focusing on on-orbit radiometric calibrations for Terra and Aqua. Since 1999, he has had extensive experience in Landsat radiometric, geometric, and spatial calibrations, working with various sensors, such as IKONOS, QuickBird, ALI, Hyperion, TM, and ETM+.
Changyong Cao is an advisor to the WMO/GSICS and former chair of the CEOS/WGCV (Committee on Earth Observation Satellites/Working Group on Calibration/Validation). He is the recipient of three gold and one silver medals from the Department of Commerce and NOAA for his achievements. Before joining NOAA, he was a senior remote sensing scientist with a leading aerospace company supporting NASA missions. He oversees the satellite instrument calibration and data assimilation branch which is responsible for the instrument performance and data quality for all operational polar-orbiting and geostationary satellites at NOAA. He leads the STAR radiance science team, Visible Infrared-Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument calibration/validation team, and co-leads the GOES Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) calibration working group (CWG). He developed the Simultaneous Nadir Overpass (SNO) inter-satellite calibration method, which has become one of the cornerstones of the WMO/Global Space-based Intercalibration System (GSICS), widely used for on-orbit instrument performance evaluation for Earth observation satellites, and for long-term time-series and climate change detection studies. He has broad research interests in satellite instrument performance characterization, exploration of novel uses of satellite observations, and new technologies.
Xi Shao received his B.S. degree in space physics from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, in 1996; his Ph.D. degree in astronomy with a space physics major in 2001; and his M.S. degree in electrical engineering with a microelectronics major in 2004, both from the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA. He is a research scientist at CISESS/ESSIC, University of Maryland. He has worked in research areas such as space weather-related research, current and future space-borne visible/infrared imaging sensor (Visible Infrared-Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), and upcoming METimage) calibration and validation, small-satellite-based microwave and radio occultation sensor (COSMIC-2, GeoOptics and Spire) calibration and validation, laser proton accelerator design, and novel Radio Frequency (RF) transceiver design. He has designed antennas for various RF communication applications. He also worked on various plasma physics-related projects, such as space weather modeling and prediction, satellite protection through radiation belt remediation, ionosphere heating experiment and modeling, and laser proton accelerator design.
