2003 Recipient - Dr. George May

Dr. George May
B.S. 1971; M.S. 1973; Ph.D. 1976
2003 Recipient

Dr. George May has used his education from the Department to develop a national reputation for applying agricultural remote sensing at the farm level. He accomplished this by creating commercial spin-off companies from his applied research programs that are currently servicing corn, wheat, soybean and cotton farmers across the United States. Dr. May has been a national leader in providing Congress, NASA, USDA, and commodity associations with the information necessary to identify problems, to recommend solutions through the use of remote sensing technologies, and to implement programs that support the needs of farmers and other agribusiness.

Dr. May currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Institute for Technology Development, Inc. (ITD) (www.iftd.org), a private, non-profit company conducting applied research in remote sensing and converting the results into marketable products and services.

Dr. May was the founder and developer of Resource21, a company that is developing satellites to serve the agricultural community with image-based crop management products. The latest agricultural remote sensing spin-off company under Dr. May's leadership was established in 2002. InTime, Inc., is increasing net profits for crop producers by using prescription-farming techniques to reduce herbicides, insecticides and other chemical inputs. In addition to saving money for the producers, this approach is also having positive impact on the environment.

In recent years, Dr. May has taken ITD's knowledge and technology used to detect stress and disease in crops and applied it to assess stress and disease in humans. Current areas of application include wound care, ophthalmology and food safety. In addition, he has received NASA support to get ITD's patented hyperspectral imaging sensor on-board the International Space Station.