Edited by Robert Wernli and Harumi Sugimatsu
It is with sadness that I have to report the passing of one of our greatest members, Jim Barbera, on 5 June 2024, at the age of 87. He was preceded in death by Peggy, his beloved wife of 62 years. He is survived by his four children, as well as multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Jim was a devout Catholic and long-time parishioner at the Shrine of St. Jude Catholic Church in Rockville, MD. Jim was a little league sports coach, a founder of the Olney boys club, a high school football referee, a crossword puzzle solver, a sports fan and a world traveler. He was dearly loved and will be greatly missed.
The following provides comments from many OES members regarding their memories of Jim.
Robert Wernli
Jim was highly involved in the organization and running of OES. He spent 12 years on AdCom between 1992 and 2005 followed by being OES president from 2005-2008 and as past president for the next 8 years.
In addition, Jim and I, along with several others, spent decades traveling the world to promote OES and to take our OCEANS conferences and other symposia to different countries. This effort proved to be very successful. Jim also enjoyed working in the OES exhibit booths at OCEANS and OTC conferences, where I also had the pleasure of spending many conference weeks working with him promoting the society.
Another fixture at the OES conferences was Peggy Barbera, Jim’s wife, who was always there supporting Jim and the conferences. Unfortunately, Peggy passed in January of 2023. I’m sure they’re again together, high above, keeping an eye on the society and their conference friends.
Harumi Sugimatsu
I first met Jim at the OCEANS around 2000. Whenever I attended OCEANS, Jim and Peggy were always there to welcome us all warmly. It was because of the strong support of Jim and his team that we were able to hold the OCEANS and other international conferences like UT in Japan and Asian countries.
Thanks for everything, Jim and Peggy!
Jerry Carroll
We all miss Peggy and Jim very much. Two of my very best friends and advisors.
A. Atmanand
That is a sad news. Jim was the main person in all OCEANS conferences as a lead in the booth. He used to motivate young students to become IEEE members. I still remember how he motivated my son and his friends during OCEANS at Taipei.
Stan Chamberlain
Jim was one of the many colleagues in OES who became a good friend. I fully enjoyed his company and his counsel in the many involvements we had together.
Diane DiMassa
So so sorry to hear this news.
He was such an integral part of OES for so many years and personally helped me navigate AdCom and ExCom when I was getting started. Farewell my friend. I will raise a glass of Barbera wine in your memory and honor.
RIP Jim.
René Garello
Sad news indeed. I have been working very closely with Jim after he was elected President, and for years we traveled to many of the next OCEANS sites, especially in Europe, for meeting the chairs and the local authorities. I have a very fond memory of his sense of humor, and I recall his endless stories of when he was in the Navy. Farewell, Jim.
Louise and Tom Wiener
The OES has lost a treasure both in Jim and in Peggy. Louise and I are deeply saddened. As others have said, Jim was a wise counselor and an effective, energetic participant and leader in our Society. When there was something to be done, Jim was there to do it. I recall many times his sensitive and knowledgeable advice kept me away from blunders and on the straight and narrow path to success. And Peggy was always a bright presence on our social gatherings. We wish them peace in the arms of the Lord.
Sadly.
Jenhwa Guo
I attached a picture taken on the 2010 9th of March at 9:30 in the morning. We visited the chairman’s office of the National Taiwan University. He was here for the preparation and site visit for the OCEANS 2014.
Archie Todd Morrison III
Jim was a wonderful colleague and trusted friend. As an OES officer, you could count on him to address any situation, no matter how seemingly dire, calmly and with minimal fuss. In discussion he always saw right to the heart of the matter and usually offered a comment that was simultaneously pithy, entertaining, and enlightening. I’ll always remember the night in Aberdeen when Jim, John Watson, Craig McLean, and I held an impromptu single malt tasting in John’s hotel room, calmly discussing and solving most of the problems in the world until about 3am. At that point Peggy located us and told Jim, forcefully, but calmly, that it was bedtime. Peggy was Jim’s wife and she also passed recently. She was a fixture and helpmate at OCEANS, where she and I had a friendly competition displaying our collections of conference pins. Jim and Peggy were OCEANS colleagues, but more importantly, Jim and Peggy were great friends, to me and to many others, and I will miss them dearly.
Steve Holt
Jim was an old friend of mine who lived close to where I do in the Washington, DC area. I enjoyed seeing him sometimes for lunch and I can’t tell you how informative he was in teaching me about OES procedures. I enjoyed being Secretary to him years ago and my wife (Dorothy) and I really enjoyed attending his 50th wedding anniversary with Peggy nearby. He will be very sadly missed and I thank him for all of his service to the IEEE OES and also the US Navy.
Yasuyoshi Ishii, the first Treasurer of OES Japan Chapter
I think I first met Mr. Jim Barbera at OCEANS’02 Biloxi. He was a very dependable person with impressive eyes and goatee. At that time, I was a treasurer of OES Japan Chapter, and Mr. Barbera, who was a treasurer of OES, helped me a lot from the submission of Preliminary Budget to the submission of Final Report for OCEANS’04 Kobe TECHNO-OCEAN 2004 (OTO’04), which was to be held in Japan for the first time. He was a great help to us for OTO’04. He is one of the people who contributed to make OTO’04 possible in Japan. The photo is from our visit to Scripps Institution of Oceanography during OCEANS’03 San Diego. I would like to express our sincere condolences to Mr. Jim Barbera.
Venugopalan Pallayil
Sorry to hear the sad news. I still remember my first time meeting in Singapore during the preparations for OCEANS 2006 along with Stan.
Malcolm Heron
Vale Jim. A true gentleman and a pillar of OES.
Christoph Waldmann
I have found Jim to be an absolutely reliable and supportive person. It saddens me to hear of his death.
John Watson
That’s really sad news. A real stalwart of OES.
Bill Kirkwood
Sorry to hear about this… he was a good guy who did a lot for OES.
Marinna Martini
This is sad news indeed.
Tamaki Ura
My sincere condolences to spirit of Jim. In November 2002, Jim traveled to Kobe as Treasurer of OES with President Tom Wiener and MTS leaders, attending the Techno-Ocean Conference and the signing ceremony (see below photos) for the joint conference in 2004 with OCEANS and Techno-Ocean. Thank you, Jim, for your careful instruction to the Japanese Secretariat on how to do the accounting, which made the 2004 conference a success and laid the foundation for the three OCEANS conferences in Kobe in 2008, 2018, and also OCEANS conferences in Asia.
MTS Executive Director Judith Krauthamer, Jim and Stan Chamberlain at the signing ceremony at Techno-Ocean 2002
Suleman Mazhar has been working as a professor in Information & Communication Engineering at Harbin Engineering University (China) since July 2019. He did PhD from Tokyo University (Japan) and postdoctorate from Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA). He had BS-CS from FAST-NUCES (Lahore) and MS from GIK Institute (Pakistan). He is TYSP young scientist fellow (Ministry of Science & Technology China) and have won several research grants from international organizations such as DAAD (Germany), ICIMOD (Nepal), NRPU (Higher Education Commission Pakistan), WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) Pakistan. His research focus is deep learning and signal processing applications for environmental monitoring, with particular focus on underwater acoustics, and marine mammal conservation. He is a reviewer for professional journals such as Journal of Acoustical Society (America), IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE Sensors Journal, Applied Acoustics, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems.
Peng Ren is a full professor with the College of Oceanography and Space Informatics, China University of Petroleum (East China). He is the director of Qingdao International Research Center for Intelligent Forecast and Detection of Oceanic Catastrophes. He received the K. M. Scott Prize from the University of York, the Natural Science award (first rank) from China Institute of Electronics, and the Eduardo Caianiello Best Student Paper Award from 18th International Conference on Image Analysis and Processing as one co-author. He has served as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing.
Mohd Rizal Arshad is a full professor at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Malaysia, where he specializes in ocean robotics technology and intelligent system. He received his B.Eng. in Medical Electronics & Instrumentation and PhD in Electronic Engineering from University of Liverpool, UK in 1994 and 1999, respectively. He completed his MSc. in Electronic Control Engineering from the University of Salford, UK in Dec 1995. He has supervised many postgraduate students and published extensively in local and international publications. He is a senior member of the IEEE, and was awarded IEEE OES Presidential Award in 2019.
Itzik Klein is an Assistant Professor, heading the Autonomous Navigation and Sensor Fusion Lab, at the Charney School of Marine Sciences, Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa. He is an IEEE Senior Member and a member of the IEEE Journal of Indoor and Seamless Positioning and Navigation (J-ISPIN) Editorial Board. Prior to joining the University of Haifa, he worked at leading companies in Israel on navigation topics for more than 15 years. He has a wide range of experience in navigation systems and sensor fusion from both industry and academic perspectives. His research interests lie in the intersection of artificial intelligence with inertial sensing, sensor fusion, and autonomous underwater vehicles.
John R. Potter (IEEE M’94, SM’02, F’18) graduated in the previous century with a joint honours Mathematics and Physics Degree from Bristol and a PhD. in Glaciology and Oceanography from Cambridge, UK studying Antarctic ice mass balance, where he spent four consecutive summers. This work helped underscore the non-linear fragility of polar ice to climate change and led to him receiving the Polar Medal from Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.
Nick is a Visiting Fellow at the UK National Oceanographic Center, Southampton His nomination was endorsed by the Underwater Acoustics Technology Committee. He had worked as a Research Associate and Lecturer at University of Birmingham and has been working as a Research Scientist at the Applied Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin. He has also served as a Program Officer at the Office of Naval Research Global. He is a senior member of IEEE (OES) and a Fellow of Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Nick has also been serving as Assoc. Editor for IEEE JoE and JASA. He is widely acknowledged for his expertise are seabed acoustics, parametric array modeling, sonar beamformer, underwater signal processing.
Maurizio Migliaccio (M’91-SM’00-F’17) is Full professor of Electromagnetics at Università di Napoli Parthenope (Italy) and was Affiliated Full Professor at NOVA Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, FL (USA). He has been teaching Microwave Remote Sensing since 1994. He was visiting scientist at Deutsche Forschungsanstalt fur Lüft und Raumfahrt (DLR), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He was member of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) scientific committee. He was member of the ASI CosmoSkyMed second generation panel. He was e-geos AdCom member. He was Italian delegate of the ESA PB-EO board. He was Member of South Africa Expert Review Panel for Space Exploration. He serves as reviewer for the UE, Italian Research Ministry (MIUR), NCST, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong Research board. He lectured in USA, Canada, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Switzerland and Italy. He was Italian delegate at UE COST SMOS Mode Action. He is listed in the Italian Top Scientists. He is an IEEE Trans. Geoscience and Remote Sensing AE, International Journal of Remote Sensing AE, and was IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering AE Special Issue on Radar for Marine and Maritime Remote Sensing, IEEE JSTARS AE of the Special Issue on CosmoSKyMed, Member of the Indian Journal of Radio & Space Physics Editorial board. His main current scientific interests cover SAR sea oil slick and man-made target monitoring, remote sensing for marine and coastal applications, remote sensing for agriculture monitoring, polarimetry, inverse problems for resolution enhancement, reverberating chambers. He published about 160 peer-reviewed journal papers on remote sensing and applied electromagnetics.
He has developed various types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and related application technologies including navigation methods, a new sensing method using a chemical sensor, precise seafloor mapping methods, a precise seabed positioning system with a resolution of a few centimeters, a new sensing system of the thickness of cobalt-rich crust; and more. He has shown, by using these technologies that AUVs are practicable and valuable tools for deep-sea exploration.
Donna Kocak has had an outstanding career in defense and scientific projects developing and applying solutions in subsea optics, imaging and robotics. She graduated with an M.Sc in Computer Science in 1997 from the University of Central Florida; an MBA in 2008 from the University of Florida; and M.Sc in Industrial Engineering in 2011 from the University of Central Florida. She is currently a Senior Scientist, Advanced Concepts Engineering, and Fellow at the Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida, where she has developed novel optical imaging and communication solutions for under-sea defense and scientific projects. Prior to 2008 Donna Kocak was Founder and President of Green Sky Imaging, LLC (GSI) who developed laser/video photogrammetry software for underwater inspection and survey. Her earlier career positions were with Naval Training Systems Center, Florida; Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, Florida; eMerge Interactive; and the Advanced Technologies Group in Florida.
John Potter has a Joint Honours degree in Mathematics and Physics from Bristol University in the UK and a PhD in Glaciology and Oceanography from the University of Cambridge on research in the Antarctic, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal in 1988. John has worked on polar oceanography, underwater acoustics, ambient noise (including imaging), marine mammals, communications, IoUT, autonomous vehicles and strategic development. He has 40 years’ international experience working at the British Antarctic Survey in the UK, NATO in Italy, SIO in California, NUS in Singapore and most recently at NTNU in Norway. John is a Fellow of the IEEE and MTS, an Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, IEEE OES Distinguished Lecturer, PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer & an International Fellow of the Explorer’s Club.
Dr. James V. Candy is the Chief Scientist for Engineering and former Director of the Center for Advanced Signal & Image Sciences at the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy received a commission in the USAF in 1967 and was a Systems Engineer/Test Director from 1967 to 1971. He has been a Researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory since 1976 holding various positions including that of Project Engineer for Signal Processing and Thrust Area Leader for Signal and Control Engineering. Educationally, he received his B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Cincinnati and his M.S.E. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida, Gainesville. He is a registered Control System Engineer in the state of California. He has been an Adjunct Professor at San Francisco State University, University of Santa Clara, and UC Berkeley, Extension teaching graduate courses in signal and image processing. He is an Adjunct Full-Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Candy is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and elected as a Life Member (Fellow) at the University of Cambridge (Clare Hall College). He is a member of Eta Kappa Nu and Phi Kappa Phi honorary societies. He was elected as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Candy received the IEEE Distinguished Technical Achievement Award for the “development of model-based signal processing in ocean acoustics.” Dr. Candy was selected as a IEEE Distinguished Lecturer for oceanic signal processing as well as presenting an IEEE tutorial on advanced signal processing available through their video website courses. He was nominated for the prestigious Edward Teller Fellowship at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Candy was awarded the Interdisciplinary Helmholtz-Rayleigh Silver Medal in Signal Processing/Underwater Acoustics by the Acoustical Society of America for his technical contributions. He has published over 225 journal articles, book chapters, and technical reports as well as written three texts in signal processing, “Signal Processing: the Model-Based Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1986), “Signal Processing: the Modern Approach,” (McGraw-Hill, 1988), “Model-Based Signal Processing,” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2006) and “Bayesian Signal Processing: Classical, Modern and Particle Filtering” (Wiley/IEEE Press, 2009). He was the General Chairman of the inaugural 2006 IEEE Nonlinear Statistical Signal Processing Workshop held at the Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge. He has presented a variety of short courses and tutorials sponsored by the IEEE and ASA in Applied Signal Processing, Spectral Estimation, Advanced Digital Signal Processing, Applied Model-Based Signal Processing, Applied Acoustical Signal Processing, Model-Based Ocean Acoustic Signal Processing and Bayesian Signal Processing for IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society/ASA. He has also presented short courses in Applied Model-Based Signal Processing for the SPIE Optical Society. He is currently the IEEE Chair of the Technical Committee on “Sonar Signal and Image Processing” and was the Chair of the ASA Technical Committee on “Signal Processing in Acoustics” as well as being an Associate Editor for Signal Processing of ASA (on-line JASAXL). He was recently nominated for the Vice Presidency of the ASA and elected as a member of the Administrative Committee of IEEE OES. His research interests include Bayesian estimation, identification, spatial estimation, signal and image processing, array signal processing, nonlinear signal processing, tomography, sonar/radar processing and biomedical applications.
Kenneth Foote is a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The George Washington University in 1968, and a Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University in 1973. He was an engineer at Raytheon Company, 1968-1974; postdoctoral scholar at Loughborough University of Technology, 1974-1975; research fellow and substitute lecturer at the University of Bergen, 1975-1981. He began working at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, in 1979; joined the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1999. His general area of expertise is in underwater sound scattering, with applications to the quantification of fish, other aquatic organisms, and physical scatterers in the water column and on the seafloor. In developing and transitioning acoustic methods and instruments to operations at sea, he has worked from 77°N to 55°S.
René Garello, professor at Télécom Bretagne, Fellow IEEE, co-leader of the TOMS (Traitements, Observations et Méthodes Statistiques) research team, in Pôle CID of the UMR CNRS 3192 Lab-STICC.
Professor Mal Heron is Adjunct Professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, and is CEO of Portmap Remote Ocean Sensing Pty Ltd. His PhD work in Auckland, New Zealand, was on radio-wave probing of the ionosphere, and that is reflected in his early ionospheric papers. He changed research fields to the scattering of HF radio waves from the ocean surface during the 1980s. Through the 1990s his research has broadened into oceanographic phenomena which can be studied by remote sensing, including HF radar and salinity mapping from airborne microwave radiometers . Throughout, there have been one-off papers where he has been involved in solving a problem in a cognate area like medical physics, and paleobiogeography. Occasionally, he has diverted into side-tracks like a burst of papers on the effect of bushfires on radio communications. His present project of the Australian Coastal Ocean Radar Network (ACORN) is about the development of new processing methods and applications of HF radar data to address oceanography problems. He is currently promoting the use of high resolution VHF ocean radars, based on the PortMap high resolution radar.
Hanu Singh graduated B.S. ECE and Computer Science (1989) from George Mason University and Ph.D. (1995) from MIT/Woods Hole.He led the development and commercialization of the Seabed AUV, nine of which are in operation at other universities and government laboratories around the world. He was technical lead for development and operations for Polar AUVs (Jaguar and Puma) and towed vehicles(Camper and Seasled), and the development and commercialization of the Jetyak ASVs, 18 of which are currently in use. He was involved in the development of UAS for polar and oceanographic applications, and high resolution multi-sensor acoustic and optical mapping with underwater vehicles on over 55 oceanographic cruises in support of physical oceanography, marine archaeology, biology, fisheries, coral reef studies, geology and geophysics and sea-ice studies. He is an accomplished Research Student advisor and has made strong collaborations across the US (including at MIT, SIO, Stanford, Columbia LDEO) and internationally including in the UK, Australia, Canada, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, India, Sweden and Norway. Hanu Singh is currently Chair of the IEEE Ocean Engineering Technology Committee on Autonomous Marine Systems with responsibilities that include organizing the biennial IEEE AUV Conference, 2008 onwards. Associate Editor, IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 2007-2011. Associate editor, Journal of Field Robotics 2012 onwards.
Milica Stojanovic graduated from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, in 1988, and received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston, in 1991 and 1993. She was a Principal Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 2008 joined Northeastern University, where she is currently a Professor of electrical and computer engineering. She is also a Guest Investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Milica’s research interests include digital communications theory, statistical signal processing and wireless networks, and their applications to underwater acoustic systems. She has made pioneering contributions to underwater acoustic communications, and her work has been widely cited. She is a Fellow of the IEEE, and serves as an Associate Editor for its Journal of Oceanic Engineering (and in the past for Transactions on Signal Processing and Transactions on Vehicular Technology). She also serves on the Advisory Board of the IEEE Communication Letters, and chairs the IEEE Ocean Engineering Society’s Technical Committee for Underwater Communication, Navigation and Positioning. Milica is the recipient of the 2015 IEEE/OES Distinguished Technical Achievement Award.
Dr. Paul C. Hines was born and raised in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. From 1977-1981 he attended Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, graduating with a B.Sc. (Hon) in Engineering-Physics.