Jim Irons Wins Pecora Award for Landsat Leadership

Last month, Jim Irons, now an emeritus scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, received the William T. Pecora Award. He served as deputy project scientist for Landsat 7 and later as project scientist for Landsat 8, working across the agency and with colleagues at USGS to keep Landsat supplying critical data to researchers around the world.

Irons championed rigorous calibration standards and fought to retain the Landsat 8 thermal band. That decision has enabled projects like OpenET to derive evapotranspiration from Landsat thermal imagery and has proven valuable for monitoring agricultural water use, cloud detection and fire monitoring.

When schedule delays opened a window, Ed Weiler supported adding a thermal sensor, and Kathy Richardson and Fernando Pellerano built it on a tight timetable. He led NASA Goddard’s Earth Science Division during the early COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing support so staff could continue their work.

United States

jim irons, pecora award, landsat 8, landsat 7, thermal band, openet, evapotranspiration, nasa goddard, usgs, earth science