Dr Roy Arvidson presents St. Christopher Lecture

At the 17th International Conference of the ISTVS, held in September in Blacksburg, Virginia, Dr. Roy Arvidson of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S., presented the 2011 St. Christopher Lecture on his amazing work with the Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

You can view his full presentation slidedeck here, complete with many wonderful Mars images from the work of the rovers or download the presentation as a PDF (3MB).

Ray Arvidson is James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University, St. Louis.

He is Deputy Principal Investigator for the science payload on NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers. In addition, Arvidson serves as an interdisciplinary scientist on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, head of NASA's Planetary Data System Geosciences Node and a director of NASA's Regional Planetary Image Center.

He has more than 100 publications dealing with remote sensing of Earth, Mars and Venus. He was science team leader for the imaging system on NASA's Viking Landers from 1977 to 1982.

Arvidson attended high school in Williamstown, N.J., then earned a bachelor's degree in geology from Temple University, Philadelphia, and a doctorate in geological sciences from Brown University, Providence.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer/news/telecon/bios20091110.html

http://eps.wustl.edu/people/Raymond_Arvidson

Since 1966, ISTVS has honored distinguished workers in the field of terrain-vehicle interaction by offering them the opportunity to deliver the St. Christopher Lecture at an international ISTVS conference, held every three years.

Named for the patron saint of travelers, this is the highest award offered by the society. The recipient need not be an ISTVS member. Selection and invitation of recipients is the responsibility of the conference organizing committee.

Previous recipients of the St Christopher Lecture award include the inaugural 1969 presentation by Dr. Walter Söhne, the 1981 presentation by Professor Walter Jurecka, Professor Masanori Kitano in 1984, Professor Iwan Wästerlund in 1999, and Dr. Ronald A. Liston in 2002.

18th International ISTVS Conference in Seoul, Korea, 2014

The ISTVS 2011 Board of Directors Meeting held in conjunction with the 17th International COnfernece in Blacksburg, Virginia, agreed to hold the next International ISTVS Conference at Seoul, Korea, in 2014.

Prof. Kyeong Uk Kim of Seoul National University agreed to host as Conference Chairman. Conference preparation started earlier this year and the conference website will be launched later this fall.

It will be the 18th ISTVS International Conference and the second time a ISTVS conference will be held in Seoul: the first was the 5th Asian and Pacific Regional Conference held in 1998.

Prof. Kim has prepared a slidedeck of conference highlights that we've posted online for you to see:

Conference highlights

When: 4th week of September 2014

Where: Hoam Faculty House of Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

What: Plenary sessions, technical sessions, poster sessions, technical tour, social opportunities.

Call for Papers

In the areas of:

• Tires, wheels, and tracks
• Soil and terrain
• Operations on snow and ice
• Vehicle mobility and safety
• Agricultural and forestry machinery
• Mining, earthmoving and construction machinery
• Military vehicles
• Performance assessment
• Planetary rovers and mobile robotics
• Education in soil-machine system