University of Lethbridge

Office Hours

By Appointment or consult course syllabus 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

About Me

Craig Coburn is Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography and Environment. As a remote sensing scientist with over 20 years of remote sensing experience, Dr. Coburn focuses his research efforts on the fundamental aspects of remote sensing science, with specific interests in low-cost remote sensing physics and remote sensing instrument development. Recently this research has involved studying the nature of surface bidirectional spectral reflectance properties. This research has led to the development of various instruments for the sampling of surface BRDF primarily for use in understanding agricultural crops and other biological systems as well as efforts in the calibration and validation of remote sensing instruments on a global scale.

Biography

Dr. Craig A. Coburn received his B.Sc. (honours) from the University of Saskatchewan
in 1994, M.Sc. in Geography from the University of Alberta in 1996 and
Ph.D. in Geography/Remote Sensing in 2002 from Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Coburn was appointed Assistant Professor of Geography at The
University of Lethbridge, 2002 and promoted to Associate Professor in 2009 and Full Professor in 2019. Recently this research has involved studying the nature of surface bidirectional spectral reflectance properties. His research has led to the development of various world-leading instruments for the sampling of these surface properties for use in the calibration and validation of remote sensing satellite instruments as well as understanding agricultural crops and other biological systems.

Dr. Coburn has served the University of Lethbridge in a wide variety of roles from department-level to broader university wide committees. Dr. Coburn is also the President of the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers, Councillor - Canadian Association of Geographers, Co-Editor of Western Geography and Associate Editor of the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing.

Selected Publications

Laura E. Chasmer, Robert A. Ryerson & Craig A. Coburn. 2021. Educating the Next Generation of Remote Sensing Specialists: Skills and Industry Needs in a Changing World, Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, DOI: 10.1080/07038992.2021.1925531

McNeill J., Snider G., Weagle C. L., Walsh B., Bissonnette P., Stone E., Abboud I., Akoshile C., Anh N.X., Balasubramanian R., Brook J. R., Coburn C., Cohen A., Dong J., Gagnon G., Garland R. M., He K., Holben B. N., Kahn R., Sung Kim, J., Lagrosas N., Lestari P., Liu Y., Jeba F., Joy, S. K. Martins, J., Misra A., Norford L. K., Quel E. J., Salam A., Schichtel B., Tripathi S.N., Wang C., Zhang Q., Brauer M., Gibson M. D., Rudich Y.,Martin R. V. 2020. Large Global Variations in Measured Airborne Metal Concentrations Driven by Anthropogenic Sources. Scientific Reports 10 Article number: 21817. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-78789-y

Bruegge CJ, Coburn C, Elmes A, Helmlinger MC, Kataoka F, Kuester M, Kuze A, Ochoa T, Schaaf C, Shiomi K, Schwandner FM. 2019. Bi-Directional Reflectance Factor Determination of the Railroad Valley Playa. Remote Sensing 11(22): 2601. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11222601

Coburn, C.A. 2019. The AMETHYST Program: The NSERC CREATE Experience. In Balram, S. and Boxall, J., (Eds.) GIScience Teaching and Learning Perspectives. Pp. 53 - 62. Springer.

Okhrimenko, M. Coburn, C.A., and Hopkinson, C. 2019. Multi-Spectral Lidar Radiometric Calibration, Canopy Spectral Reflectance, and Vegetation Vertical SVI Profiles. Remote Sensing 11(13) 1556. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11131556

Bracken, A., Coburn, C.A., Staenz, K., Rochdi, N., Segl, K., Chabrillat, S., and Schmid, T., 2019. Detecting Soil Erosion in Semi-Arid Mediterranean Environments Using Simulated EnMAP Data. Geoderma. Volume 340C. pp 164-174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.01.026.

He, l., Coburn, C.A., Wang, Z., Feng, W., Guo, T. 2019. Reduced prediction saturation and view effects for estimating the leaf area index of winter wheat. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. Volume 57, Number 3, pp. 1637-1652. https://doi.org/10.1109/TGRS.2018.2868138

Coburn, C.A., Smith, A.M., Logie, G.S., and Kennedy, P. 2018. Radiometric and spectral comparison of inexpensive camera systems used for remote sensing. International Journal of Remote Sensing. Volume 39, Number 15-16. Special Issue on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Environmental Applications. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2018.1466085

Logie, S.J. and Coburn, C.A., 2018. An investigation of the spectral and radiometric characteristics of low-cost digital cameras for use in UAV remote sensing. International Journal of Remote Sensing. Special Issue on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for Environmental Applications. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431161.2018.1488297

Coburn, C.A. and Gerace, A., 2018. Special Section Guest Editorial: Improved Intercalibration of Earth Observation Data. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing - Special Issue on
Improved Intercalibration of Earth Observation Data. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.12.012001

Coburn, C.A, and Logie, G.S. 2018. Temporal dynamics of sand dune bidirectional reflectance characteristics for absolute radiometric calibration of optical remote sensing data. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing - Special Issue on
Improved Intercalibration of Earth Observation Data. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.12.012006

McCorkel, J., Bachmann, C.M., Coburn, C.A., Gerace, A., Leigh, L., Czapla-Myers, J., Helder, D., and Cook, B.D., 2018. An overview of the 2015 Algodones Sand Dunes field campaign to support sensor inter-calibration. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. Special Issue on
Improved Intercalibration of Earth Observation Data. Volume 12, Number 1 https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.12.012003

Flanagan, L. B., Orchard,T.E., Logie, G.S.J., Coburn, C.A., Rood, S.B. 2017. Water use in a riparian cottonwood ecosystem: eddy covariance measurements and scaling along a river corridor. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology. pp. 332-348 DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2016.08.024.

Research Interests

My research is broadly focused in the field of remote sensing physics. I am most interested in looking for new ways of visualizing problems and extracting information from remotely sensed data. This requires generating different approaches to gleaning information from data or making discoveries by testing previously held notions of the way things "work". My research spans all areas of RS science, from the collection of data with airborne remote sensing systems to the development of algorithms to process these data.

I have developed a range of advanced camera systems spanning the visible and near-infrared portions of the solar reflective spectrum as well as thermal imaging systems. These low-cost systems have been deployed in light-aircraft systems as well as in unmanned aerial systems. I have also designed and built high-altitude balloon imaging systems (miniature satellites) for teaching and research purposes.

The nature of surface spectral reflectance (the intrinsic properties of how a surface reflects light) is one of the most interesting and complex aspects of modern optical remote sensing. I began developing instruments (called goniometers) to measure these surface properties (their bidirectional spectral reflectance) in early 2005. These instruments span a range from manually operated designs to fully robotic instruments with advanced and world leading technologies. These instruments will be used to help understand the changing nature of various canopies and the role of BRDF in remote sensing.

I continue to pursue a variety of interests in the field of image texture and am working on image processing problems related to processing data with complex structures (spatial and spectral). With advancing image processing capabilities and the democratization of many Earth remote sensing data sources, I continue to look for new processing modalities to extract the vital information that remote sensing provides for the monitoring and management of our planet.

Current Research and Creative Activity

Title	Location	Grant Information	Principal Investigator	Co Researchers
Remote Sensing of Cattle Wintering Sites		Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, $45,000, over 3 years.	Craig Coburn, University of Lethbridge
Remote sensing of environmental dynamics in riparian cottonwood forests of Southern Alberta.		Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Water Research, $250,000, over 3 years.	Derek Peddle, University of Lethbridge	Stewart Rood, University of Lethbridge; Matthew Letts, University of Lethbridge
Topoclimatic and Remote Sensing Analysis of Rocky Mountain Watersheds		Alberta Ingenuity Centre for Water Research, $318,000, over 3 years.	Derek Peddle, University of Lethbridge	Matthew Letts, University of Lethbridge

Previous Research

Title	Grant Agency	Completion Date
National Land and Water Information System (Southern Alberta Ground Truth)	Agriculture and Agrifood Canada	2006
Mountain Pine Beetle Detection and Monitoring: Remote Sensing Evaluations	Forestry Innovation Investment	2005

Curriculum Vitae

My CV

Internet Links

The University of Lethbridge