On May 12th, 2017 Brian Barker was presented with the Outstanding Faculty Speciliast Award for the 2016-2017 academic year. Each year, the Department of Geographical Sciences may choose to recognize outstanding service or accomplishments of a Faculty Specialist through the presentation of this award. The award was presented by Director of Research, Dr. George Hurtt. 

As a Senior Faculty Specialist Brian is actively involved in multiple projects.  He leads an international effort to develop best-available crop type maps, with contributions from 10 international partners.  He is responsible for the development and production of all crop conditions maps and charts for the GEOGLAM Crop Monitor with over 35 international collaborators, which is published within the G-20 Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Market Monitor.  He organized and maintains a leading role in the working group on the utilization of sub-national statistics within Crop Monitor.  He coordinated the prototyping and development of both the FEWS NET and Early Warning Crop Monitors.  He interacts with multiple partner agencies on a daily bases to coordinate GEOGLAM efforts on several Crop Monitor based projects.  He contributes to several research projects on yield forecasting and working with fellow researchers in the development of Remote Sensing based crop calendars and utilizes multiple image processing and GIS software packages in support of projects.  

Congratulations Brian Barker!