Roy A. Welch, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Geography in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is the 2016 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award and honorary membership in the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Welch was honored for his professional excellence and distinguished service to the organization and for the attainment of distinction in advancing the science and the use of the mapping sciences.
Welch was the president of ASPRS in 1984 and between 1992 and 1994 he served as president of Commission IV, Mapping and Geographic Information Systems of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He is the author of more than 170 refereed publications. A Fellow of both ASPRS and ISPRS, he received several previous awards, including the UGA Research Foundation’s Creative Research Medal (1981) and Inventor of the Year Award (1993), 1981 ASPRS Fairchild Photogrammetric Award, 1993 ASPRS Alan Gordon Memorial Award and 2006 SAIC/Estes Memorial Teaching Award. He founded and was director of the UGA Center for Remote Sensing and Mapping Science from 1984 to 2003, which is now the Center for Geospatial Research.