Concept | Technology | Research Team

Remote Estimates' team members are experienced in each of the project's four main areas: 1) remote sensing, 2) population estimates, 3) software engineering and, 4) image processing and GIS applications.

Dr. Taejung Kim, an Associate Research Professor in the Satellite Technology Research Center at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has worked in the field of remotely sensed data processing for over 10 years. His main research interests are focused on automated 3D reconstruction and man-made object detection from remotely sensed images. His work has included the development of an automated algorithm to detect and reconstruct 3D building structures from aerial images, and software packages for automated DEM generation from space-borne images including SPOT, KOMPSAT-1 and IKONOS as well as from aerial images. Since 1998, He has directed the remote sensing division at Satellite Technology Research Center of KAIST. He is currently in charge of developing satellite image receiving and processing systems for KOMPSAT-2 and LANDSAT-7 for Korean satellite receiving stations, while serving as a software system engineer and data processing algorithm developer. Dr. Kim's DEM generation, sensor modeling and data processing algorithms are currently under international patent review.

Dr. David A. Swanson, a Senior Social Scientist with Science Applications International Corporation, has more than 20 years of experience in conducting a wide range of social science research, particularly in the areas of demographic analysis, estimation, and forecasting. He has practiced applied demography in a wide range of geographic settings, from Hawaii to New York, as well as, locations outside of the United States. His specialty is producing small area forecasts and estimates in support of practical decision-making. Recently, in conjunction with site characterization work on the high level nuclear waste repository proposed for Yucca mountain, Nevada, he initiated the employment of GPS-satellite technology in the development of small area population estimates. For the same project, he worked with Landsat imagery in developing contextual (multi-level) models of the effects of pluvial change on the consumption of locally produced food in rural, southern Nevada. He also has extensive sample survey and census experience. He has served as a consultant to major corporations and a wide range of federal, state and local governments. He has testified before legislative committees, courts, and commissions. He has given numerous professional and public presentations and has lectured at Statistics Canada, The Summer Quantitative Methods Program of the Inter-University Consortium For Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan, The Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, and Loyola University of Chicago. The author or co-author of more than 150 journal articles, papers, and reports on demographic and related topics, he is currently preparing, with Jay Siegel, the 2nd (revised) edition of The Methods And Materials of Demography(Academic Press), and Population Projections For States and Local Areas (Plenum Press), with Stan Smith and Jeff Tayman, (2001).

Mr. José Pereira de Almeida, Vice President of Engineering at Senecio Software, has worked on a variety of commercial software projects since 1985. Over the years he has written commercial software in Basic, Pascal, Object Pascal, Assembler, C, C++, Perlm, and Java for both the Macintosh, Windows, and, most recently, the Java Virtual Machine. He has developed software using various frameworks including: Extender, MacApp, PowerPlant, Delphi, and Java. His wide-ranging experience with multiple computing platforms, software systems, and GIS applications is essential to the development and use of the primary image processing software applications and databases required for remote estimates.  

Dr. Jerry W. Wicks, President of Senecio Software Inc., has worked in the areas of population studies and survey research for over two decades. Beginning with his direction of several large-scale NIH sponsored population survey efforts in the mid 1970's and continuing through his 15 years as Director of Bowling Green State University's largest social research organization, the Population and Society Research Center, he has been responsible for obtaining and overseeing more than 200 population and survey research studies entailing city, state, national, and multinational telephone surveys, and large-scale personal interviewing studies as well as numerous applied demography projects. Dr. Wicks was responsible for initiating the regional telephone polls (i.e., Greater Toledo Survey and the Great Lakes Poll) which are the basis for the annual, spring sociology graduate seminar in survey research techniques at Bowling Green State University. In 1985/86 Dr. Wicks and Dr. Swanson developed the first U.S. graduate program in applied demography at Bowling Green State University. Drs. Swanson and Wicks also co-directed the first two national applied demography conferences at Bowling Green. Until his retirement from Bowling Green State University in 1998, Dr. Wicks directed the graduate program in applied demography, teaching the principle course in the area, Soc. 620 - Applied Demography. His teaching also included graduate seminars in demographic methods, survey techniques, and statistical packages in the department of Computer Sciences, and a required course for undergraduate computer science majors entitled, Computers and Society. As co-founder of Senecio Software in 1992, his efforts and those of his colleague, Mr. Pereira de Almeida, have been aimed largely at automating and refining the technologies surrounding computer-assisted surveying.