Barry N. Haack (born November 1, 1946) is an American geographer and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He is an international authority on remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), and technology transfer from developed to developing nations.Haack, B., USGS Visiting Scientist. "Mission Report Visit to Hanoi, Vietnam 29 December 2013 - 12 January 2014." US Government SilvaCarbon Program, U. S. Geologic Survey, Reston, VA. 2013. 16 pp. Haack is a visiting physical scientist at the United States Geological Survey and an elected Fellow in the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). Through education and collaboration, Haack has influenced the careers of scientists and decision makers from many United States federal agencies and in universities and agencies in nearly thirty countries. He has held formal arrangements with the United Nations, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, NASA, the European Space Agency, the National Geographic Society, and many other international organizations and country governmental agencies.Haack, B. and R. Ryerson. Regional Remote Sensing Programme RAS/86/141. "Evaluation Mission Report to the United Nations Development Programme." UNDP, New York, NY. 1990. 102 pp.Philipson, W. and B. Haack. Evaluation of Project RAS/81/034 Regional Remote Sensing Programme. "Mission Report to the United Nations Development Programme." UNDP, New York, NY. 1986. 65 pp.
Early life and education Haack was born in Wausau, Wisconsin on November 1, 1946. He received a B.S. (Honors) from the University of Wisconsin in geography in 1969 and a geography M.A. from San Diego State University in 1971; Haack received a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Michigan in 1977. While at San Diego State University working as a teaching assistant for Dr. William Finch, a pioneer in the field of remote sensing, Haack was introduced to the study of the earth through aircraft and satellite imagery. That interest was the primary reason Haack chose to attend the University of Michigan; in Ann Arbor, Haack studied under professors Thomas Detwyler, Charles Olsen, and Waldo Tobler.
Career and professional highlights While a graduate student at the University of Michigan, Haack was employed by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM), initially as a research assistant and later as a research scientist. ERIM was one of the leading remote sensing organizations in the world at the time. At ERIM, Haack was involved in a number or research projects. Those that most influenced his career involved the transfer of satellite based remote sensing to developing countries. With other ERIM scientists, Haack traveled to Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh for multiple presentations and collection of field data. One of the specific projects was to employ Landsat satellite imagery to evaluate winter rice distribution in Bangladesh using regression analysis estimation techniques.Haack, B. and A. Rafter. "Regression Estimation Techniques with Remote Sensing; A Review and Case Study". Geocarto International 25 (1): 71-82. 2010. Because his professional goal was to enter academia, Haack left ERIM to take a faculty position in geography at Ball State University in Indiana in 1978. While teaching in Indiana, Haack also served as an instructor for USAID workshops on technology transfer of remote sensing in Swaziland and Kenya.
As a basic research academic, Haack was one of the initial remote sensing scientists to integrate data from optical and radar sensors. Many of his publications are based upon this research activity. Early in his academic career, Haack had fellowships at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology. It was at JPL in 1981 that Haack first integrated optical and radar data and began publishing scientific articles on the topic.Haack, B. "L and X Band Like and Cross Polarized Synthetic Aperture Radar for Investigating Urban Environments." Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, 50 (3): 331 340. 1984.Haack, B. "Multisensor Data Analysis of Urban Environments." Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 50 (10): 1471-1477. 1984.
As an extension of his Africa workshop participations, in 1981 Haack was offered a position as a remote sensing expert at the USAID funded Regional Remote Sensing Facility (RRSF) in Nairobi and worked there until 1983. RRSF served about 27 countries in East and Southern Africa on the technology transfer of primarily Landsat imagery through training programs, demonstration projects, and distribution of imagery.Odenyo, V, A. Falconer, R. Anderson, and B. Haack, 1984. "Recent Activities in Technology Transfer at the Regional Remote Sensing Facility, Nairobi, Kenya." Proceedings of the American Society of Photogrammetry. ASCM Annual Meeting, 1984, pp. 849-859. While at the RRSF, Haack began to employ satellite imagery to monitor the Omo River Delta in Lake Turkana.Haack, B. and J. Messina. "Monitoring the Omo River Delta in East Africa in East Africa Using Remote Sensing." Earth Observation Magazine. 6 (9): 18-22. 1997.
During the 1980s, Haack received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to work with Sudanese scientists to evaluate the utility of spaceborne radar for mapping in Sudan. Haack and his students frequently used the second largest city in Sudan, Wad Madani, along the Blue Nile and associated large Gezira irrigation area as a study site.Haack, B. and T. Slonecker. "Merged Spaceborne Radar and Thematic Mapper Digital Data for Locating Villages in Sudan." Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing. 60 (10): 1253 1257. 1994.Idol, T., B. Haack and R. Mahabir. "Comparison an Integration of Spaceborne Optical and Radar Data for Mapping in Sudan." International Journal of Remote Sensing. 36 (1): 1551-1569. 2015.
In 1984 he began to conduct remote sensing training for a USAID-funded National Remote Sensing Centre in Kathmandu, Nepal. That experience led to at least 15 additional professional visits to Nepal for remote sensing and GIS initiatives.Haack, B. "Land Use Change in the Kathmandu Valley Nepal." Final report to the National Geographic Society. Research Grant 3922/88. 1991. 73 pp.Haack, B. et al. "Hindu Kush-Karakoram-Himalaya Mountain Complex Partnership Project, Detailed Operational Plan." Semester 6. International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Kathmandu, Nepal. 2009. 35 pp.Haack, B. Consultancy Report, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development Mountain Environmental and Natural Resources Information System. Kathmandu, Nepal. 2008. 27 pp.Caroli, P., D. Panzeri and B. Haack, 2013. "Sagarmatha National Park (Mount Everest) Visitor Survey and Analysis (Everest Visitor Survey)." Tourism Review International. 17 (2): 115-129 2013.
Haack was appointed Associate Professor of Geographic and Cartographic Sciences in the Geography Program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia in 1985. He taught courses in physical geography and remote sensing as well as served as an advisor for master and doctoral students. Many of his students obtained prominent positions in science, policy, and intelligence areas both in the federal government and commercial companies as well as entering academia.
Haack also taught remote sensing workshops for NASA and other federal agencies, the European Space Agency in The Netherlands and at multiple international venues including Syria, Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peru, Suriname, and Ecuador.Haack, B., C. Roig-Silva, J. Shermeyer and Z. Zhou. "Remote Sensing Workshop for Resource Assessment and Land Cover Mapping Workshop Report." Manila, The Philippines, USAID SilvaCarbon Program. 2015. 20 pp.Haack, B. and C. Roig-Silva. "Radar Workshop for Resource Assessment and Land Cover Mapping Workshop Report." Ministry of Environment, Quito, Ecuador, USAID SilvaCarbon Program, 2016. 10 pp. For the academic year 1994-1995, Haack was a Fulbright Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.Haack, B. "Final Report: Council for International Exchange of Scholars, Fulbright Position." University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. 1996. 21 pp. While in Dar es Salaam and with scientists from Kenya and Tanzania, Haack obtained NASA support to evaluate combined radar and optical satellite imagery to study refugee camps. One of the camps later visited was Dadaab in Eastern Kenya. In addition to the international technology transfer activities already cited, Haack has also been supported by USDA, USGS, US Census, World Bank, United Nations, National Geographic Society, US Air Force, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, InterAmerican Development Bank, and directly by foreign governmental entities. Those activities have included program development and evaluation, training, as well as basic and applied science. Other professionally visited countries include Indonesia, Fiji, Mozambique, Thailand, China, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, and Ethiopia. Haack was involved in national mapping activities in multiple countries. In Afghanistan, that effort was in support of the evaluation and improvement of the agricultural sector. A specific focus was changes in the Helmand-Arghandab irrigation scheme.Haack, B.. "Afghanistan Irrigation System Assessment Using Remote Sensing." Proceedings: Space Technology and Applications International Forum. Albuquerque, pp. 195 202. 1997 His multiple activities in Suriname included advising on the conversion of all land ownership information to digital format as well as the social environmental impact of a proposed bauxite mine in the interior rainforest.Buursink International Consultants. "Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for the Bakhuis Bauxite Mine - Consolidation Review Report." Report to N. V. BNP. 2007.2007.Buursink International Consultants, 2002. Suriname Land Management Project, contributing author/editor, prepared for the Ministry of Natural Resources Republic of Suriname, three volumes, ~280 pp. In Nepal, he mapped urban expansion in the Kathmandu Valley and was the Chief Technical Advisor for a large international programme to develop improved management tools for the high mountains including Mount Everest. Haack has been on the editorial board for several scientific journals, including GIScience and Remote Sensing. He has also been active his entire career with the major scientific organization in his field, ASPRS. In 2006, Haack was elected a Fellow in ASPRS on the first ballot, a significant recognition in his scientific community.
Selected publications Haack has published over 200 primarily peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and major scientific reports, which are the primary standard for scientific contributions. He is first author on over 60 percent of the publications and corresponding author often with primary responsibility or with a student as first author for another 25 percent of the publications. At the time of his retirement in February, 2020, he had over 2000 professional scientific citations, another major form of scientific recognition, as documented on Google Scholar. Haack has authored chapters in the remote sensing industry standard manuals published by ASPRS."Structures and Cultural Features," chapter 7, contributing author; and, "Urban Analysis and Planning," chapter 15; editor and contributing author. Manual of Aerial Photo Interpretation, Second Edition, 1997, pp. 269-310, 517-554. American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Haack, B., 1982. "Landsat: A Tool for Development." World Development 10 (10): 899-909. Haack, B., 1983. "An Analysis of Thematic Mapper Simulator Data for Urban Environments." Remote Sensing of Environment, 13 (3): 265-275.