On Monday, 28 September, Riccardo Lanari - acting director of the Institute for Electromagnetic Sensing of the Environment (IREA) of the Italian National Research Council - received the IEEE GRSS Fawwaz Ulaby Distinguished Achievement Award 2020. The prestigious prize is conferred annually to recognize the individual who has made significant technical contributions within the technical scope of the Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). These are the theory, concepts, and techniques of science and engineering as they apply to the remote sensing of the earth, oceans, atmosphere, and space, as well as the processing, interpretation, and dissemination of this information.
In particular, Riccardo Lanari distinguished himself "for the outstanding contributions and leadership in the fields of SAR processing and SAR interferometry”, as stated in the motivation of his award.
During the virtual ceremony to recognize the major awards, the President of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society said: "Riccardo Lanari has carried out thirty years of research activity in remote sensing, particularly on spaceborne synthetic aperture radar and SAR interferometry. He has given a key contribution to the development of the well-known Small BAseline Subset technique, which is today a reference method for interferometric SAR processing".
Riccardo Lanari, as was also mentioned during the award ceremony, is an IEEE fellow, a distinction reserved for select IEEE members who have distinguished themselves for extraordinary results, of significant impact for society, and who have contributed to progress in the field of engineering, science, and technology. He is also a recipient of the Christiaan Huygens Medal of the European Geosciences Union for significant progress in the area of Geosciences, instrumentation, and data systems.