 Good afternoon, everybody. For those of you who do not know me, I'm Rao Govindaraju. I go by GS, and I'm the head of the Lyle School of Civil Engineering. And it is my pleasure today to introduce Jinha Jong. By the way, I didn't get the memo about having to suit up. But I see Jinha is appropriately addressed for this occasion. Congratulations, Jinha, on the promotion. Really well deserved. Jinha got his undergraduate and master's degree from Seoul National University and came to Purdue for his PhD. So he's one of our own. He got his PhD in 2011. And after that, he did a stint as a postdoc at the University of Illinois in Chicago. And then he went to Texas A&M, where he was a faculty member for several years. And then we were able to recruit him and bring him back to Purdue. So Jinha works in what I would call the interface between Geomatics Engineering and Natural Sciences. He works in remote sensing, high performance computing. He works with US systems. He does something called high throughput phenotyping, which we will let him explain. He has, in fact, done quite a bit of that at Texas, following some of that at Purdue. One of the things that you may be familiar with is the state's Indiana's LiDAR database, which many of us use for research, is actually something that is spearheaded by Jinha and his work. So he also manages that for us. So with that, Jinha, I'm looking forward to your comments. Thank you. Thank you, GS, for a great introduction. And it's my honor to be here to present my journey. I got here. And I'm going to borrow your next 10 minutes to talk about my journey. And trust me, I'm not going to take any technical detail about any of my research, so that it's going to be a little bit more entertaining. So I'm from originally South Korea. And I was born in the city called Naju, because that's the city where my parents met when I get married. And I thought I was born. And my parent was an elementary school teacher. So he got a job in an island called Noha Island. So we moved there. So I lived there until when I was three. And my dad got a job in Guangzhou City. So we moved there. So I stayed there for my teenagers, went to elementary school, middle school, and high school, et cetera. And by this time, this is the size of the world that I know. I know in geography, the world is much larger than this. But intuitively, this is the world that I know. And after that one, there is a chance where my world gets a little bit larger. And after high school, I went to Seoul National University to study in college. And I majored in something called the Civil Urban Geosystem Engineering Department over there. So as probably all you did as a freshman, especially in South Korea, you're in high school. And K-12 education is so tough. And I was having a lot of fun. I did a lot of crazy things. Not going to school, not going to the final. Some of this mess like a couple of apps, et cetera, away from my parents, et cetera. So I did so many crazy things. But one of the crazy things that I did during my undergraduate study was actually traveling to Europe. Just in a plane ticket. And Europe passed for one month. I didn't book anything just in a leaf. You're not booking any hotel without knowing where to go. And this was the moment where I realized that, hey, actually there is a lot bigger world than South Korea out there. And after this one, of course, it was tough. Because I was in under budget. No plan. It suffered a lot. But I realized that, hey, I'd like to study abroad. I'd like to explore what is out there. So as I came back and consulting with my seniors, and I'd like to study abroad, where to go. What kind of option do I have? And at that time, I was pursuing a faculty position in South Korea. And all my seniors were telling me that you need to do your master degree in South Korea if you'd like to come back. Otherwise, you're not going to have any chance. That's what I did. And I did my master degree here at the South National University. My advisor is in Hyeongdong Park over there. I did my master degree in developing GIS application for a borehole in the management system over there. And after finishing my master, I traveled all the way to Purdue to start my PhD. And at that time, these are the faculty members in geomatics engineering. I'm going to say that about three of them retired. Actually, four of them retired. But I was feeling very lucky to meet them to start my PhD journey. And in 2007, I joined the lab in a LARS, in Dr. Crawford over here. I met her. And I joined the group. And I did my PhD in data fusion between full-level LiTAR and high-perspectral for process application. Basically, how to combine those two data sets, how to just extract information out of it, how to utilize high-performance computing for those in a complex data set. To that one, I started my post-doc at UIC, working with Brian Pzennaski from here at Purdue, and working with LiTAR and in a soundscape at the time to study in nature. Then in 2013, I had an opportunity to come back to Purdue, working with Dr. Crawford again as a postdoc at the time, and working with the data fusion with LiTAR and high-perspectral. But also, another fun project was developing this UAV, or Drone for High-Perspectral. At that time, we all know that DJI is dominating the market at the time. I mean, right now, but at the time, DJI was a small company. They just had a DJI panel one or something like this. So we worked with a company in Brazil, this yellow airplane over there. They brought this in a frame all the way here. It was not yet. And it was so big. We cannot hand-launch it. So we have to mount it on top of the car, which is an abbey to Dr. Crawford's in a personal car over there, with the manual sticks. And I was the only one who can drive manual sticks. I was a driver. You don't see me in the picture, but you see that Dr. Crawford is right next to it. And it was a great experience to expose it into something new. In 2014, I had an opportunity to move to Texas. I got a position at Texas A&M Cooper's Christie. This is a beautiful campus on an island. I still remember every time I drove to my office, a city in a beautiful ocean. It is very relaxing, unless you have a hurricane, of course. We had a hurricane harby. Hit that in areas I have to evacuate. That is another story. But at that time, Texas A&M Cooper's Christie was designated as one of the six UAB test sites by FAA. And it was very comfortable in your process. And the Texas A&M Cooper's Christie got one of them. And the university was pushing UAB as one of the major research in our trust at the time. So I knew that I had to be part of it. And also, in 2015, Texas A&M got one of the DOE, RPAE grant. And there's two awardees nationwide. One was in a Texas A&M. The other one was Purdue. And we're kind of competitors at the time. So I started working at the UAB based in high-drug phenotype regions in the region majoring in the plant. Working on this. And I didn't realize that I'm gonna be working on this area whole my career in Texas A&M. Or in the next five years, utilizing my expertise in geomatics and remote sensing and high-performance computing and et cetera, and helping this challenging problem with agriculture. So I worked with that in the topic for the last five years. My program was going pretty strong. And I had three post-docs at the time. And one PhD student, one master's degree student. Here at Purdue, there's not a big group, but the campus that I was in, this was one of the largest in the program that I was running. And funding was good as well. But there's always something in my mind that I understand what it was. And now I can explain why it was, but this is the photos that I found from the Google. You know, Salmon always like to come back to the place where you're born. Do you know why? Because Salmon comes back to the stream where they're born, because they know it is a good place to spawn. They want to waste time looking for stream with good habitat and other salmons. Purdue was like that for me. And I remember when I first came here for an interview, I really envied this in a geomatics program. Because in Texas A&M, I was running the program that has nothing to do with the geomatics. But here, I can just build my own program that's going to be strong in my core area. And that gives me the reason why I need to come back. So in 2019, I was just here for the interview and I got on offer, decided to come back. This was in a three-day drive all the way from South Texas all the way to Lafayette. So starting my position in 2019, it was great. See, all those new students, but you know that what happened in 2020, COVID started. There's nobody at school. And this is a beginning stage of my career where I need to build my network and that this was brutal. Because I cannot meet anybody. And I cannot develop any collaboration. And it was tough at the beginning, but soon realized that there's other ways of doing it. By the way, this is all the setup. This is my desk in my office right now. And you see the camera in the middle, the monitors, the monitors, and how am I look on the double screen and the audio mixers, the video features so that I can go back in between my screen and et cetera. So it was a great opportunity for me to develop my online presence using this as an opportunity. And we also did an undergraduate study and an undergraduate teaching. This is Radhika. She was one of the Life Teaching Fellow where she's teaching at the demonstration where we are live streaming through the YouTube live over there. 109 students are joining over there. There's about 20, 30 students in person because they're operating in a hybrid mode over there. And with that, I think we've been doing pretty good. And I just came up with this kind of mission statement, I'm going to say. Our lab, named as the Geospatial Data Science Lab, aims to innovate, enrich, and synthesize geospatial data science for solving challenging problems by leveraging our expertise. So I think we are doing pretty well in this area. And not only coming back to Purdue, not only I was able to work with the agriculture in the disciplines, but now I can diversify. I can work with the forestry in a non-manpower of the digital forest initiative. I'm doing a lot of collaboration over there. And not only the natural object, I can have a chance to work with the non-natural object concrete in the Aspar core you see over there. And also, getting involved with the Aspar project or the connected vehicle and electric charging system on the road is going to be part of the core area as well. And I'd like to end my presentation with a quote that I found online, which kind of aligns very well with my experience and where I want to be. And 20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones that you did. So throw up your ball in a ball lines, set away from the safe harbor, catch the trade wind in yourselves, explore, dream, and discover. And I think that that's what I want to do for the rest of my career. And I'd like to spend a couple of minutes to thank my collaborators who helped me to get here. These are the collaborators from the Texas A&M System were there. And I'd also like to thank my collaborators within the civil engineering department and also other faculties from other areas. And I'd also like to thank my student who graduated from my program. And always, the first one is special. My first one was Dr. Ajay Chan. And he started my program when I was in Texas A&M. He was the only one that I have at the time. No funding, anything. He've been through everything with me. I would like to thank him. Now he's a fact member in Tennessee State University. My second postdoc was in a Dr. Jun Ho-Yam. And he is now as a fact member in South Korea Kyeongsan National University. And my third postdoc was in a Dr. O. He's actually sitting here right now. And he helped me transition from Texas to Purdue over there over here. And now he is a computational infrastructure specialist at the Institute of Planet Science here at Purdue. My first PhD student, Dr. Akashi Aishapura. And he was also very special because he was not recruited by me. He was recruited by some other faculty member in Texas A&M. But he happened to join my group and moved all the way here at Purdue and graduated here from Purdue. Now he's working in NASA. I'd like to thank my current research group members. Some of them are sitting here. I believe some of them are joining online as well. And my family. This is my brothers and sisters and my parents. And my brothers and sisters' family. I would also like to thank my parents-in-law. And really thank them. And I'd like to especially thank the three persons who helped me greatly for me to get here. And those three, I am not listing them by any importance anything, just by cross-order that I met. First one is Dr. Ed Mikhail. He was the one, he's now retired, but he was the one who taught me all those Geomatics Engineering when I first came here. I did not know anything about Geomatics Engineering. I'd like to call him my father in Geomatics. My advisor, Dr. Crawford. I still believe when we first met, at the time when she joined Purdue as part of the DreamHire, I was looking for my advisor. And she, you know, you believed in me, gave me an opportunity to join your group. And without that, I'm not going to be here. Really thank you. And the last person that I'd like to thank is Dr. Juan Landbar. He is a director of Texas and a regular life course committee center. He has been my friend's collaborator when I was in Texas and then I learned so much from him, not only about the research, but about how to collaborate. So I'd like to call him my fine collaborator. I'd like to call him my mother in research. And last but not least, my family, my son Josh and Irene and my wife, in a suddenly, and we don't have my family. I'm not going to be here. And we'll be able to support truly that I can be here. And with that, I'd like to end my presentation. Thank you, John. Any questions? In this journey, you had many challenges from the point of view of teaching, to research, to developing collaborations. What was the most difficult of these, nearly about COVID, and what would you advise to other people, particularly those that might be interested in interdisciplinary research? Cool, that is tough question. First thing that comes into my mind, I don't think I'm doing good at this yet, but I've been able to say no to things that came to me. And the price, is this in the right thing to do at this moment? And especially when you started in a new career as a junior faculty, of course you are looking for opportunities. Probably you're going to hunt for everything, but sometimes you may have to be careful what to pursue and what to not. And being able to say no when you know that you cannot handle that opportunity appropriately so that you can build your reputation. So I think that is going to be the most difficult thing that I'm still learning how to do at this moment. Okay, now you are in this part of faculty. If you're wearing the faculty, what would you be doing? Was there an alternative when you were going through this journey? So if I repraise your question, if I start my faculty career again, what would I do differently? Oh, if I'm not a faculty, what I do? I've never thought of any other career other than that. Because like I mentioned earlier, I think I even listed this as my teaching statement. Like I said, my father was an elementary school teacher and he's been kind of my role model that I like to teach. So the sole reason why I decide to pursue PhD is because I like to be in the position where I can teach. So probably if I'm not, didn't get a faculty position in the back, probably I'm going to be working in some other, maybe some, as I said. I'll be teaching somewhere else. It may not be the civil engineering geomatics, probably I may be teaching. I mean, even when I was in college, I was teaching at the private computing schools. I was teaching, you know, how to, you know, to the system of the mission, all those kind of stuff. So probably I think I'm going to be teaching something else, not as a faculty, but I have a passion in teaching. Yeah, so I'm an outsider of your research, obviously. When talking about geospatial data science, my first reaction would be privacy, or security concerns, right? So data is collected everywhere. And so is anything we need to be aware of or be concerned of as a non-research? I don't think I have an answer for your question, but that is becoming a very sensitive topic, especially that the UAV or drone is becoming more popular platform for collecting these kinds of geospatial data. But there's a lot of other, you know, privacy information is being shared online because, you know, all the satellite images are distributed for free. Of course, there are certain areas that are being masked out for the national security, et cetera. And all I can say is that it's becoming one of the, you know, topics that everybody starts to talk about and how we can avoid those, you know, privacy issues when it comes to this in the UAV because it becomes so sensitive, probably. But I was really... Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you. All right. Yeah. Thank you.