Scientist wins 2017 USACE Innovator of the Year Award

Photo By Jackie L Bryant | Dr. Richard Massaro of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center is the winner of the 2017 USACE Innovator of the Year Award. His accomplishment, “Tactical Full Motion Video to 3D,” benefits the Army and Department of Defense in providing Soldiers and deployed forces with highly-detailed geospatial data delivered by manned and unmanned systems. Massaro, a physical scientist in ERDC’s Geospatial Research Laboratory, was also recognized for his accomplishment by the U.S. Army Materiel Command as the winner in the Individual-Civilian category of the Fiscal Year 2016 Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene Award for Innovation.  

ALEXANDRIA, VA, UNITED STATES

09.12.2017

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center   

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Sept. 11, 2017) -- Dr. Richard Massaro of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center is the winner of the 2017 USACE Innovator of the Year Award. His accomplishment, “Tactical Full Motion Video to 3D,” benefits the Army and Department of Defense in providing Soldiers and deployed forces with highly-detailed geospatial data delivered by manned and unmanned systems.

Massaro, a physical scientist in ERDC’s Geospatial Research Laboratory, was also recognized for his accomplishment by the U.S. Army Materiel Command as the winner in the Individual-Civilian category of the Fiscal Year 2016 Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene Award for Innovation. The award is named for Greene, who was killed Aug. 5, 2014 during the War in Afghanistan.

“Knowing that there are many excellent researchers and innovators within the Corps, it’s certainly humbling to receive this award. I feel we are just working away at our job trying to provide Soldiers with high-resolution geospatial products in a timely manner. And in pursuit of that goal, we are giving Soldiers the ability to create those products automatically and on-demand using their organic assets,” said Massaro.

At GRL, he serves as the prime investigator for the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Intelligence’s Investment Fund initiative on ‘Operational Advancement of FMV-to-3D Mapping’ and co-investigator for the Advanced Topographic Laser Scanning System applied research program.

He earned a bachelor’s in physics from James Madison University, a master’s in astronomy from Boston University, and a doctorate in computational science and informatics from George Mason University.

Massaro has served as a reviewer for the Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing Journal since 2015. PE&RS is the official journal for imaging and geospatial information science and technology. He has also authored or co-authored 12 peer-reviewed articles.

He received the 2017 ERDC Award for Excellence in Operational Support as part of a three-person team that supported the 2nd Brigade Combat Teams of the 82nd and 101st Airborne by developing a Soldier-deployable geospatial capability and providing training and workflow design to conduct mapping operations in and around Erbil, Dahuk and Mosul, Iraq in 2016. He is also the recipient of the 2016 ERDC Research and Development Award; 2015 ERDC Achievement Medal for Civilian Service; 2013 ERDC Research and Development Award, and Topographic Engineering Center Director’s Award for Excellence in Scientific and Technological Achievement; George Mason University’s 2011 Best Computational Sciences and Informatics Dissertation; 2006 TEC Director’s Award for Operational Support and the ERDC Research and Development Achievement Award.

• Date Taken: 09.12.2017
• Date Posted: 09.13.2017 08:02
• Story ID: 248044
• Location: ALEXANDRIA, VA, US