Miguel Roman

Miguel O. Roman, (born 1981), is a research physical scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) who developed multi-resolution surface Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) and albedo retrieval techniques from airborne multiangle remote sensing data. He is an expert and researcher in terrestrial vegetation dynamics and remote sensing of the land surfaces.

Early years
Miguel Roman was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After he graduated from CROEM high school, he attended the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus and, in 2004, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering.

Career in NASA
Roman continued his academic studies at Cornell University, earning a Master's degree in Systems Engineering (2005). In 2009, he received a doctorate in Remote Sensing from Boston University. While studying at BU, Roman did his dissertation research at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, as part of NASA's Harriett G. Jenkins Pre-doctoral Fellowship (JPFP) and the Graduate Student Research Program (GSRP). Upon his graduation from BU, Roman became a research physical scientist in the Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Currently, Roman is part of a multi-agency team of Earth and climate scientists in charge of developing and evaluating algorithms for the VIIRS instrument onboard Suomi NPP and JPSS satellites. JPSS will provide continuation of U.S. capability required to observe, protect, and manage our Planet’s resources to promote environmental stewardship; to monitor biophysical processes on the surface of the Earth; and to monitor surface temperatures of land and ocean, chlorophyll fluorescence, and cloud cover and aerosols in the atmosphere.

Dr. Roman is also the Land scientist for NASA’s Cloud Absorption Radiometer; the most frequently used airborne instrument built in-house at NASA Goddard. His research is centrally concerned with the development and application of remote sensing in multiangle satellite and airborne imaging systems (e.g., MODIS and MISR) to measure and monitor terrestrial essential climate variables for climate change assessment, mitigation, and adaptation. He has participated in several field campaign programs (e.g., FluxNet, NACP, ARM-DoE, and BSRN) and intense observing periods (e.g., ChEAS’06, CLASIC'07, and ARCTAS'08) to coordinate the production of in-depth accuracy and variability assessments for current and future reprocessing of global surface albedo and reflectance anisotropy products. His research at NASA has led to improved understanding of the relationship between vegetation parameters estimated from remotely sensed data at different spatial scales (from both airborne and satellite sensors) and the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) of complex heterogeneous environments.

He is the current chair of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society's Washington/Northern Virginia Chapter and a member of the American Geophysical Union, the Golden Key International Honor Society, the Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society (PR-Alpha Chapter), and the NASA Academy Alumni Association.

Honors and Awards

 * NASA Agency Honor Awards: Early Career Achievement Medal (2012)
 * IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (GRSS) Gold Early Career Award (2012)
 * NASA/GSFC Hydrospheric and Biospheric Sciences Laboratory Annual Award (2010 Rookie of the Year)
 * NASA/GSFC Special Act Incentive Awards (2010-2011)
 * NASA Harriett G. Jenkins Pre-doctoral Fellowship (JPFP) (Cohort IV - 2004-2006)
 * NASA Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP) Fellowship (2007-2009)
 * US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Award (2006)
 * Xerox Technical Research Award (2005)
 * Cornell University Teresa Lazaro Memorial Master of Engineering Fellowship (2004)
 * University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Research Associate Award (2002)
 * IBM Corporation Traineeship at Harvard Business School (2002)
 * USGS STAR Award (2001)