mjc

Michael Collins

PEng, PhD

Positions

Professor

Schulich School of Engineering, Department of Geomatics Engineering

Contact information

Email

mjcollin@ucalgary.ca

Background

Educational Background

B.Sc. Surveying Engineering, University of New Brunswick, 1981

M.Sc. Oceanography, University of British Columbia, 1987

Ph.D. Earth and Space Science, York University, 1993

CV

Biography

Dr. Michael Collins' field of specialization is remote sensing and, in particular, synthetic aperture radar or SAR. He is an international authority on the use of compact polarity SAR for ocean surveillance and has published several pioneering papers in this area.

He and his students have developed a SAR simulation system and used it to explore the use of image texture for characterizing the Earth’s surface. His group has also explored the use of SAR imagery for agriculture, forestry and forest ecology.

Dr. Collins has developed and taught courses in remote sensing, digital imaging, computer programming and engineering design, and is the recipient of many teaching excellence awards.

Dr. Collins has held several leadership roles within the Schulich School of Engineering including Associate Head of Geomatics Engineering and Associate Dean (Student Affairs) of Engineering. He is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Remote Sensing, and he has served on the Board of Examiners of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA) since 1999.

Courses

Course number Course title Semester
ENGO 500 Geomatics Engineering Capstone Project Fall 2021 - Winter 2022
ENGD 407 Numerical Methods Winter 2022
ENGD 407 Numerical Methods Spring 2022

Awards

  • SSE Teaching Excellence Award, Schulich School of Engineering. 2020
  • SSE Teaching Excellence Award, Schulich School of Engineering. 2019
  • SSE Research Excellence Award, Schulich School of Engineering. 2018
  • SSE Students Teaching Excellence Award, Engineering Students Society. 2016
  • Geomatics Engineering Professor of the Year, Engineering Students Society. 2015
  • Students Union Teaching Excellence Award, 2015
  • Outstanding Teaching Performance, Schulich School of Engineering. 2015
  • Outstanding Teaching Performance, Schulich School of Engineering. 2014
  • APEGA Volunteer Service Award, APEGA. 2014
  • Geomatics Engineering Professor of the Year, Engineering Students Society. 2013
  • SSE Teaching Excellence Award, Schulich School of Engineering. 2013
  • Fellow of Geoscientists Canada (Hon), Geoscientists Canada . 2013
  • Geomatics Engineering Professor of the Year, Engineering Students Society. 2011
  • Fellow of Engineers Canada, Engineers Canada. 2011

More Information

Selected Papers

Ferdous, Md. Saimoom, Umma H Himi, Peter McGuire, Desmond Power, Thomas Johnson and Michael Collins

(2020) Assessing the Usefulness of Iceberg Electromagnetic Backscatter Modelling using a C-Band SAR Classifier. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 17(8), 1353–1357.

Ferdous, Md. Saimoom, Umma Hafsa, Peter McGuire, Desmond Power, Thomas Johnson and Michael Collins

(2019) C-band Simulations of Melting Icebergs Using GRECOSAR and an EM model: Varying Wind Conditions at Lower Beam Mode. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 12(12), 5134–5146

Collins, M.J., Meng Ma and Mohammed Dabboor (2019) On the effect of polarization and incidence angle on the estimation of significant wave height from SAR data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 57(7), 4529–4543

Ferdous, Md. Saimoom, Peter McGuire, Desmond Power, Thomas Johnson and Michael Collins (2018) A com- parison of numerically modelled iceberg backscatter signatures with Sentinel-1 C-band synthetic aperture radar acqui- sitions. Canadian Journal Remote Sensing, 44(3), 232–242

Denbina, M., and M.J. Collins (2016) Wind Speed Estimation Using C-Band Compact Polarimetric SAR For Wide Swath Imaging Modes. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 113, 75–85

Denbina, M. M.J. Collins, and Ghada Atteia (2015) On the Detection and Discrimination of Ships and Icebergs Using Simulated Dual-Polarized Radarsat Constellation Data. Canadian Journal Remote Sensing, 41(5), 363–379

Denbina, M. M.J. Collins, B. Minchew, C.E. Jones, and B. Holt (2015) On the Use of Compact Polarimetry L- Band SAR for Characterizing The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 8(3), 1062–1077

Otukeia, John Richard, Thomas Blaschke, and M.J. Collins (2015) Fusion of TerraSAR-x and Landsat ETM+ data for protected area mapping in Uganda. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, 38, 99–104

Atteia, Ghada and M.J. Collins (2015) Ship Detection Performance Using Simulated Dual-Polarization Radarsat Con- stellation Mission Data. International Journal Remote Sensing, 36(6), 1705–1727

Otukeia, John Richard,Thomas Blaschke, and M.J. Collins (2014) Using the Wishart maximum likelihood classifier for assessing the potential of TerraSAR-X and ALOS PALSAR data for land cover mapping. International Journal of Image and Data Fusion, 5(2), 138–151.

Denbina, M. and M.J. Collins (2014) Iceberg Detection Using Simulated Radarsat Constellation Data. Canadian Jour- nal of Remote Sensing, 40(3), 165–178

Dabboor, M., M.J. Collins, V. Karathanassi, and A. Braun (2013) An unsupervised classification approach for po- larimetric SAR data based on the Chernoff distance for complex Wishart distribution. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 51(7), 4200–4213

Maghsoudi, M., M.J. Collins and D.G. Leckie (2013) Radarsat-2 polarimetric SAR data for boreal forest classification using SVM and a wrapper feature selector. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6(3), 1531–1538

Atteia, G.E. and M.J. Collins (2013) On the Use of Compact Polarimetry SAR for Ship Detection. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 80, 1–9

Collins, M.J., M. Denbina and G.A. Atteia (2013) On the reconstruction of quad-pol SAR data From compact po- larimetry data for ocean target detection. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 51(1), 591–600

Otukei, J., T. Blaschke and M. Collins (2012) A Decision Tree Approach for Identifying the Optimum Window Size for Extracting Texture Features from TerraSAR-X Data. In: Car, A., T. Jekel, J. Strobl and G. Griesebner (eds.). GI Forum 2012: Geovisualisation, Society and Learning, Wichmann, Heidelberg, 466–474.