Liew Soo Chin, Ph.D.
Head of Research
Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP),
National University of Singapore
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Education
Undergraduate Education
I attended the Universiti Sains Malaysia
in Penang, Malaysia. I enrolled in the Science with Education program
majoring in Physics and Mathematics (1978 - 1982). In my final year, I
worked as a student assistant in the biophysics lab, studying the
elastic properties of bovine paricardial tissues under the supervision of
Prof. K. O. Lim.
Immediately after graduating from USM, I was posted to a secondary school in Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia, teaching Science and Mathematics.
After a year in wilderness 8-), I decided to do my graduate study.
Graduate Education
I attended the University of Arizona
(Tucson, Arizona, USA) from 1983 to 1989
for my graduate studies in the
Physics Department. My thesis title was
"
Thermoacoustic emission induced by deeply penetrating radiations and
its applications in biomedical imaging". My PhD thesis advisor was
Professor
Theodore (Ted) Bowen, who was (and still is) an experimental high energy
physicist, but he also had an interest in the medical application of
thermoacoustic emission induced by radiations. His interest in thermoacoustic
emissions started in the
DUMAND project (Deep Undersea Muon And Neutrino Detection) in the late
seventies, when
acoustic emission induced by the high energy cosmic rays particles
in the ocean was proposed as a possible mechanism for detecting the particles.
He got some grants to set up a thermoacoustics lab alongside his high
energy cosmic ray physics lab. I was involved in the construction of the
thermoacoustics systems: ultrasonic transducers, amplifiers,
high voltage pulsers, microwave sources, ADC, CAMAC, signal averager, ...
and many other fun stuffs. I started applying digital signal processing techniques to study
the detected signals. My first program was written in Turbo Pascal 2.0 running
on an IBM XT with 20 Mbytes hard disk, 256k RAM and a monochrome graphics monitor, state of the arts at that time. Later on, we got a DSP board based on the TI-TMS32010 chip installed in the PC.
It helped to speed up the computation of DFT quite a bit.
I studied the signatures of the thermoacoutic signals induced by
microwave and X-ray pulses in a water tank containing various phantoms. I also did some
theoretical modeling and computer simulation of the system. One interesting finding in my
project was the detection of thermoacoustic signals in water at 4oC. Since water
has zero expansion coefficient at 4oC, no thermoacoustic signal should be
produced according to the conventional theory of thermoacoustic emission. I am not working
in this field anymore and Ted has closed down his thermoacoustics lab. I hope someone
will investigate it further.
Before I joined Ted's lab, I voluntered to work in Professor
Donald Huffman's lab, working on light scattering from aerosols and
suspensions of small particles in water. Prof. Huffman is a good teacher
and experimentalist. I learnt lots of laboratory techniques from
him. At first I intended to pursue along this line
to study the scattering signatures of biological particles (bacteria,
spores, etc) but it did not materialise due to funding constraint.
Prof. Huffman is now famous for the discovery of the Kratschmer-Huffman
technique for the simple production of large quantities of C60
(buckminsterfullerene)
I have also worked in Prof.
Hans Roehrig's lab in the
Radiology Department and the
Optical Sciences Center, initially in a project
related to the course on Medical Optics taught by him. Later on, I spent a
few summers working on the characterization of a Computed Radiography system
utilizing a type of
phtostimulable phosphor screen.
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Research
University of California at San Francisco, Radiology
I did my post-doctoral work in the
UCSF Physics Research Laboraty,
Department of Radiology,
University of California at San Francisco.
My boss at that time was
Prof.
Bruce Hasegawa.
He is a nice guy and we have been good friends since then. Besides nuclear medicine,
he likes sushi and sashimi, but unfortunately my stomach can't handle
raw fish. I was almost in a state of shock when Bruce gave me the task of designing, developing and testing a prototype
Emission-Transmission Computed Tomographic (ETCT) system utilizing a high-purity
germanium detector array, incorporating both x-ray transmission and gamma-ray emission imaging
for correlating functional and anatomical information. I knew almost
nothing about CT then, but I knew that it was not a device for scanning your favourite pet, contrary to its more popular abbreviation: CAT scan.
I learned about CT and reconstruction algorithms on the job, including the
iterative maximum-likelihood method while I was there. I also have lots of practice in fixing vacuum leaks.
I was also interested in studying the noise propagation in emission tomography
reconstruction using the iterative maximum-likelihood method.
National University of Singapore, Physics
I came to the Department of Physics,
National University of Singapore in 1990 and joined
the Nuclear microscopy group, then headed by Prof. S. M. Tang. My experience
in CT helped me to apply the maximum-likelihood
method to solve the problem of reconstructing trace elemental
depth profile in particle induced x-ray emission (PIXE).
I have also developed an iterative maximum-likelihood algorithm
for the tomographic reconstruction of trace element concentration
distribution using microbeam PIXE.
I continued to work on noise propagation in emission CT, in collaboration
with Bruce Hasegawa at UCSF. We have also collaborated on studying the
energy dependent systematic errors in dual-energy X-ray CT in the presence
of high atomic number elements (such as iodine) as contrast
media. A graduate student (Mr. Goh Kheng Lim) is pursuing
this project for his M.Sc. thesis at the Physics Department, NUS. He is now at
Univ of Aberdeen. The last time I heard, he has graduated with a PhD in Bioengineering.
National University of Singapore, CRISP
The Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP) then headed by Prof. Lim Hock was set up in 1992 under a grant from the
National Science and Technology Board (NSTB), now known as Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). I joined the informal weekly discussion group. Initially, our discussions focussed on the topics of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) focussing algorithms and phase unwrapping in interferometric SAR. The ground station, with a 13-m receiving antenna, was commissioned in late 1995. I joined CRISP formally in Nov 1995, leading the
forestry and vegetation group.
I am now Head of Research at CRISP.
During the initial years at CRISP, I started working on applications of remote sensing in forestry, agriculture and vegetation study. Some of the major projects accomplished together with my colleagues were:
- Delineation and classification of rice cropping systems in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, in collaboration with the International Rice Research Institute and the University of Cantho, Vietnam
- Assessment of burn areas during the 1997 forest fire episode in Sumatra and Kalimantan using SPOT and ERS InSAR images
- Land cover classification using interferometric SAR data
I also worked on atmospheric radiative transfer, atmospheric correction in optical remote sensing, scattering point spread function; speckles in SAR; texture analysis of remote sensing images; image processing and classification techniques.
Currently, my research is mainly focused on:
- Derivation of optical properties and water quality parameters of sea and inland waters from remote sensing reflectance data
- Thermal sensing of vegetation fires
- Hyperspectral data analysis and applications in land cover classification
International Projects
I am currently Principal Investigator in the following international projects:
- NASA's EO-1 Science validation team on Forest classification using Hyperion data
- ESA's ENVISAT research project on Forest fire and haze monitoring using AATSR and MERIS data
- NASDA's
ADEOS2 - research project on algal bloom monitoring using GLI data
I am also a Co-Investigator in
- NASDA's ALOS research project on land cover classification using multi-polarization SAR (with M. Nakayama of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology as PI)
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Teaching
I have taught courses on Electronics and Medical Physics in the Physics department, NUS. For several years, I have also taught a course on
Image Processing in the Computational Science department, from the 1994/95 session until 1999/2000.
I am now teaching an honours year module on Remote Sensing in the Physics Department.
Students' Projects
Here is a list of students' projects I supervised:
PhD Project
- The role of vegetation on mitigating the Urban Heat Island effect in Singapore (jointly with A/P Wong Nyuk Hean), (Department of Building, ongoing)
- Inverse modeling for simultaneous retrieval of the optical properties of sea water and atmospheric aerosols from remote sensing reflectance (jointly with Prof. Lim Hock), (Department of Physics, ongoing)
MSc. Projects
- Energy dependent systematic errors in dual-energy x-ray computed tomography, completed 1998 (Physics).
- Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data processing, (jointly with Prof. Lim Hock and Prof. Bernard Tan) completed 1998 (Physics).
- Computation of subpixel land surface temperature from MODIS satelltie data, (jointly with Prof. Lim Hock) (Physics, ongoing)
- Reflectance of homogeneous and vertically stratified sea waters (jointly with Prof. Lim Hock) (Physics, ongoing)
- Spectral signatuers of mangrove vegetation, (jointly with A/Prof Hugh Tan) (Biological Sciences, ongoing)
Honours Year Project
- Noise in SPECT images reconstructed using an iterative maximum-likelihood algorithm with attenuation correction, 1991/92 (Physics).
- Detection of noisy, low-contrast objects in digitally processed images: A contrast-detail study, 1991/92 (Physics).
- Analysis of hair using nuclear microscopy, 1993/94 (Physics).
- Accelerated restoration of blurred images and blind deconvolution using the Richardson-Lucy algorithm, 1994/95 (Computational Science).
- Noise propagation in SPECT reconnstructed using iterative maximum-likelihood expectation-maximization algorithm, 1994/95 (Physics).
- Restoration of degraded images using MLEM algorithm assuming Gaussian noise model, 1995/96 (Computational Science).
- Computation of scattering point spread function due to atmospheric aerosols in optical satellite remote sensing of the earth surface, 1996/97 (Computational Science).
- Estimation of water quality parameters from spectral reflectance measurements, 1999/2000 (Computational Science, Mathematics).
- Computation of atmospheric radiative transfer, 1999/2000 (Computational Science, Physics).
- Monte Carlo simulation of underwater visibility, 2004/2005 (Physics).
Science Research Program (SRP) for Junior College Students
- Effects of gamma radiation on simple electronic devices, 1992.
- PIXE analysis of water, 1993.
Polytechnic Student Mentorship
- Colour of the sea water and its application in water quality monitoring and shallow water bathymetry, 2000/2001 (Singapore Polytechnic, three students).
NUS Special Programme in Science
- Cloud patterns and formation and their dependency on weather conditions, 2000/2001 (three students).
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Professional Societies
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Publications
Click here for a list of my pubblications
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Invited Talks and Lectures
- Ocean Color Remote Sensing of the Coastal Waters in Southeast Asia, Asia-Oceania Geosciences Society, First Meeting, Session OA17: Remote Sensing of the Coastal Zone, Singapore 5-9 July 2004.
- Fire Detection Activities at CRISP and Burnt Area Mapping Using SPOT Quicklook Images, GOFC-GOLD SEA Burnt Area Mapping Workshop, Bangi, Malaysia, 17-19 May 2004.
- Applications of High Resolution Satellite Imagery in Management of Oil Palm Plantations, Workshop on Applications of Satellite Imagery and Information Technology for Improving Efficiency and Productivity of Oil Palm Plantations, Pekanbaru, Riau, Indonesia, 1 July 2003. Organized by Riau University and Indofood Company.
- Monitoring Algal Blooms from Space: Possibilities and Limitations, Workshop On Red Tide Monitoring In Asian Coastal Waters, Tokyo, Japan 10-12 March 2003. Organized by Department of Aquatic Bioscience, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo.
- Cal/Val of MODIS Fire Hot Spots Using High Resolution Imagery, Southeast Asia GOFC (Global Observation of Forest Cover) Fire Workshop, Phuket, Thailand, 22 - 25 January, 2002.
- Disaster Monitoring in Southeast Asia, UN-ESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) Regional Workshop on Cooperative Mechanism in Space Technology Applications for Natural Disaster Management, Beijing, China 5-6 June 2002.
- Satellite detection of forest fire and burn scars, Workshop on Forest Fires: Its Impact on Biodiversity, Brunei Darussalam 22 - 23 March 2001. Organized by ARCBC (ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation).
- Operational Fire Monitoring and Burn Scar Mapping, GOFC-Fire Workshop, Tokyo, Japan 20 February, 2001.
- Satellite Ocean Color Data for Algal bloom monitoring in Southeast Asian Waters, 11th JSPS Joint Seminar on Marine Science, Tokyo, Japan 20 - 22 Nov 2000.
- Satellite Remote Sensing As A Data Source for GIS in Agriculture, Forestry and Environmental Study, Workshop on Plantation Forestry GIS, Vientiane, Lao PDR 12 - 14 December, 2000. Organized by Lao-ADB Plantation Forestry Project and CIRAD-Foret, France.
- Spectral reflectance signatures of case II waters: Potential for tropical algal bloom monitoring using satellite ocean colour sensors, 10th JSPS/VCC Seminar on marine and Fisheries Sciences, Melaka, Malaysia 29 Nov - 1 Dec, 1999.
- Applications of ERS SAR in Mapping Rainfed Rice in the Mekong Delta, ESA Training Course of ERS Radar Data for Natural Resources and Environmental Monitoring, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 13 - 24 October, 1997.
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Other Professional Activities
Physics Olympiads
I have been actively involved in organizing the Singapore Physics Olympiad and training of Singapore team participating in the International Physics Olympiad (IPHO). I went to the XXV IPHO (1994) in Beijing as an observer, and to the XXVI IPHO (1995) in Canberra, Australia as the Singapore team leader.
International Conference Organization
- IEEE IGARSS 1997 - Member of the Technical Committee
- International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment 2000 - co-chair of a technical session
- Asian Conference on Remote Sensing 2001 - Chairman of the Technical Committee
- International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment 2002 - Mmember of the Technical Program Committee
- International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment 2003 - Member of the Technical Program Committee
- Asia-Oceania Geosciences Society, First Meeting, 2004 - Convenor and co-chair of a scientific session on "Remote Sensing of the Coastal Zone".
- IEEE IGARSS 2005 - Member of the Technical Committee
- Asian Space Conference (ASC) 2007 - Technical Programme Chair
- IEEE IGARSS 2007 - Member of the Technical Committee
- IEEE IGARSS 2008 - Member of the Technical Committee
Review of Journal articles and Research proposals
I have reviewed papers submitted to various journals, including
- IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
- Remote Sensng of Environment
- International Journal of Remote Sensing
- Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Asian Journal of Geoinformatic
- Geocarto International
- Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research
I have also reviewed proposals submitted to NASA and Belgium government for funding.
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