Messinger to head Center for Imaging Science

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David Messinger

Rochester Institute of Technology professor David Messinger has been named director of the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, following a national search, announced Sophia Maggelakis, dean of RIT’s College of Science. His new role is effective immediately.

Messinger served as interim director of the Center for Imaging Science after the departure of then-director Stefi Baum in August 2014. Prior to that, he was the director of DIRS (the Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing) Research Laboratory in the center.

“David brings to this position collaborative decision-making, a sense of community building, strong leadership and management skills, and dedication to the mission of the center, our college and RIT,” Maggelakis said. “As director of DIRS, he has done an excellent job leading the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science to many accomplishments that earned RIT national and international recognition.”

Messinger’s expertise in image processing helped produce useful imagery for crisis managers following the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, the Japanese nuclear disaster in Fukushima Daiichi after the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, and flooding in the southern tier of New York caused by Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011.

More recently, Messinger has strengthened industry and government connections in Washington, D.C., and advocated for a national commitment to train imaging scientists to fill nationally sensitive positions held by an aging workforce. Messinger, RIT President Bill Destler and industry representatives, in 2013, briefed a congressional panel on the workforce need—and national defense concern—in a hearing made possible by Rep. Louise Slaughter.

“I am very happy and honored to be asked to be the next director of the Center for Imaging Science,” Messinger said. “The center, as a multidisciplinary academic and research program, serves a very diverse community of scientists, engineers and applications specialists working in many fields that use imaging systems. I look forward to the opportunities that await our faculty, staff and especially our students, to solve important problems using imaging systems.”

The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science is a multidisciplinary academic and research center that focuses on systems used to create, perceive, analyze and optimize images. Researchers at the center use and develop imaging systems to answer fundamental scientific questions, monitor and protect the environment, enhance national security, aid medical research and digitally recover historical documents. The Center for Imaging Science offers BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in imaging science.

As a mentor, Messinger has advised more than 25 MS and Ph.D. students, and involves students in his research projects. His work focuses on remotely sensed spectral image exploitation using physics-based approaches and advanced mathematical techniques with an emphasis on large-area search and target detection. Messinger’s scholarly activity extends to participating in national and international collaborations and organizing scientific expeditions. He has written more than 100 scholarly articles and numerous successful grant proposals.

Messinger is an associate editor of the journal Optical Engineering and serves as co-chair of the SPIE Conference on Algorithms and Technology for Multispectral, Hyperspectral and Ultraspectral Imaging, and on the technical committee of the Department of Energy Conference on Data Analysis, or CODA.

He is a member of the GEOINT Research and Development Working Group and a member of both the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation Activities Based Intelligence Working Group and Academic Advisory Board. He is a prior academic adviser to the Remote Sensing Advisory Board for the Department of Homeland Security and has served on several program review boards for various government agencies and national laboratories.

Messinger earned his Ph.D. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his BS in physics from Clarkson University. Before joining RIT in 2002, he worked as an analyst for XonTech Inc. and for Northrop Grumman on the National Missile Defense Program for Northrop Grumman.