Prof. Dr. Gilberto Camara

Prof. Dr. Gilberto Camara is a researcher in Geoinformatics, Earth Observation, and Land Use Modelling at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
He is internationally recognised for promoting free access to geospatial data and for setting up an efficient satellite monitoring of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Gilberto was INPE’s director general from December 2005 to May 2012. Under his guidance, INPE’s team achieved big advances in land change monitoring using remote sensing, leading to a major decrease in the deforestation in Amazonia.
Gilberto has advised 29 PhD dissertations and 28 Master thesis and has published more than 180 peer-reviewed papers cited more than 17,800 times. From June 2013 to May 2015, he was visiting professor at the University of Münster in Germany. He was Director of the Secretariat of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) from July 2018 to June 2021. He was inducted as a Doctor honoris causa from the University of Münster (Germany) and as a Chevalier (Knight) of the National Merit Order of France. He received the William T. Pecora award from NASA and USGS for "leadership to the broad and open access to remote sensing data".