Dr. Qassim Abdullah is an achieved scientist with more than 45 years of combined industrial, research and development (R&D), and academic experience in analytical photogrammetry, digital remote sensing, and civil and surveying engineering. Dr. Abdullah obtained his doctorate and master degrees in photogrammetry from the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is the Vice President and Chief Scientist for Woolpert Inc. His responsibilities include designing and managing strategic programs to develop and implement new remote sensing technologies focused on meeting the evolving needs of geospatial users.
He also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland, and at Penn State, where he teaches graduate courses on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), photogrammetry and remote sensing. Among his achievements, Dr. evaluated and introduced a Geiger-mode and single photon lidar to the geospatial industry while leading Woolpert research activities surrounding intelligent transportation systems, digital twin, smart cities, and UAS sensor calibration and workflow development. Dr. Abdullah is a Fellow with the ASPRS and the creator and principal author of the new ASPRS Positional Accuracy Standards for Digital Geospatial Data, Editions 1&2, where he received the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019 and has been the recipient of several prestigious awards within the organization. Most recently, Dr. Abdullah was awarded the “Outstanding Personal Achievement in Lidar Award” during the Geoweek2023 conference. He publishes a monthly column, “Mapping Matters,” in the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) journal, PE&RS. Dr. Abdullah is a member of the NOAA Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP) and is on the Transportation Research Board’s Standing Committee, the New Users of Shared Airspace (AV095) and a friend of the TRB Standing Committees, the Geospatial Data Acquisition Technologies (AKD70), Geographic Information Science (AED40), Information Systems and Technology (AED30). Dr. Abdullah also serves on the advisory board for Geoweek. Dr. Abdullah is a certified photogrammetrist and licensed professional surveyor and mapper in Florida, Oregon, Virginia, and South Carolina. He is also a certified thermographer by the FLIR Infrared Training Center and a Certified GEOINT Professional in Remote Sensing and Imagery Analysis (CGP-R) by the USGIF.
