Marvin Bauer is professor emeritus of remote sensing in the Department of Forest Resources, College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences (CFANS) at the University of Minnesota.
With degrees in agriculture and agronomy from Purdue University and the University of Illinois, he was a research agronomist from 1970 – 1983 with the Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing at Purdue University where he had key roles in the design, implementation and data analysis of major agricultural remote sensing experiments with NASA and USDA.
In 1983 he moved to the University of Minnesota as a professor in the Department of Forest Resources and director of the Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis Laboratory. He taught courses on remote sensing of natural resources and environment, helping hundreds of students to understand the techniques, applications and value of remote sensing and geospatial information, and was advisor to students in Natural Resources and the Master of Geographic Information Science program who have gone on to work in geospatial information science and applications, providing expertise to government, academia, and the private sector.
As a researcher, he is recognized for developing applications of satellite sensing for resource inventory and monitoring. His research has emphasized the development of quantitative satellite remote sensing for crop and forest inventory, monitoring lake water quality, and classification of land cover and impervious surface mapping, change detection and analysis. He has been principal investigator of several NASA grants, including projects on regional and forestry applications of satellite remote sensing, as well as State of Minnesota contracts for mapping and monitoring land cover, impervious surface area and water quality of lakes and rivers. He applied his research in partnerships with state and local agencies to help resource managers with management decisions. The results of his land cover classification and water quality monitoring projects are available in web-based mapping applications. For example, the “LakeBrowser“enables resource managers, researchers and citizens to access water quality information on lakes across the state and has over 8,000 visits a month.
He is a fellow of the American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing and has received the USGS-NASA William T. Pecora Award, NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, ASPRS SAIC Estes Memorial Teaching Award, and Minnesota GIS/LIS Consortium Lifetime Achievement Award. He was editor-in-chief from 1980 – 2014 of Remote Sensing of Environment, the #1-rated remote sensing journal for 25 years.
