Michael Starek
Associate Professor
S&E-School Of Engineering & Computing Sciences
Dr. Michael J. Starek is an Associate Professor of Geospatial Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and Director of the Measurement Analytics (MANTIS) Lab at the Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science where he also serves as Chief Scientist. Starek holds a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida, where he was a recipient of the prestigious Alumni Fellowship, an M.S. in Computer Science, and was formerly a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow of the U.S. Army Research Office in affiliation with North Carolina State University. Dr. Starek’s research explores the merging of geomatics, remote sensing, and geospatial computing for monitoring and assessment of natural environments and built infrastructure. As author or co-author, Starek has published over 60 peer-reviewed publications in geospatial-centric topics including remote sensing, geomatics, machine learning, and autonomous systems.
Faculty Details
PhD, University of Florida, Civil Engineering
Unoccupied Aircraft Systems (UAS) & autonomous sensing
Multi-sensor data fusion
GIS/geospatial analytics
Artificial intelligence for geospatial data
Geomatics solutions for resource monitoring, engineering and resiliency
"Wet/Dry Shoreline Detection Using Deep Learning", 2021 ASBPA National Coastal Conference, 2021-10-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Use of sUAS for Traffic Incident Management during Suboptimal Environmental Conditions", Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting, 2021-01-21, (Oral Presentation)
"Fusing UAS-SfM and airborne lidar to evaluate tropical storm impacts and respective recovery of a barrier island subaerial beach and foredune system", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2020-12-01, (Poster)
"Mobile Lidar Integrated with a 360-Degree Spherical Camera for Rapid Assessment of Beach and Foredune Elevation Change Due to Hurricane Hanna on North Padre Island, Texas, USA", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2020-12-01, (Poster)
"Suggesting a Deep Learning-based Point Cloud Segmentation Framework to Classify Ground and Above-Ground Targets in a 3D Point Cloud acquired by a Full-waveform Terrestrial …", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2020-12-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Identifying Botanical Composition and Accuracy Assessment from Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Imagery of Grassland Mixture", ASA, 2020-01-01, (Poster)
"Update on UAS Activities at TAMUCC", UNOLS Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Airborne Research (SCOAR), 2020-12-17, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal and Marine Applications", University of Florida Geomatics Program, 2020-11-06, (Lecture)
"Deep Learning and UAS Aerial Surveying for Hyperspatial Resolution Coastal Land Cover Mapping", ASBPA Annual Conference, 2020-10-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Drone Survey of Eleuthera Island, Bahamas to Study Impacts of Large Ocean Waves", SACNAS Annual Conference, 2020-10-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Examining the ShortTerm Recovery of a Barrier Island Beach Following Hurricane Michael Using UAS-SfM and Lidar", ASBPA Annual Conference, 2020-10-16, (Oral Presentation)
"Extracting Camera Pose Using Single Image Super Resolution Networks", IEEE IGARSS, 2020-09-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Mobile and Airborne Lidar Scanning of Beach Elevation Change Due to Hurricane Harvey", IEEE IGARSS, 2020-09-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Surfzone Bathymetry Estimation Using Wave Characteristics Observed by Unmanned Aerial Systems", IEEE IGARSS, 2020-09-01, (Oral Presentation)
"ACCELERATING AND ENHANCING ADVANCED IMAGE REGISTRATION PROCESSES WITH A NOVEL PROCESS FOR CREATING TRIANGULATED IRREGULAR NETWORKS", ASPRS 2020 Annual Conference, 2020-06-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Deep Learning-Based Super-Resolution to Enhance Lower Quality UAS Imagery for Structure-from-Motion", ASPRS 2020 Annual Conference, 2020-06-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Quantifying Hurricane Impacts on a Barrier Island using UAS-SfM and Airborne Lidar", ASPRS 2020 Annual Conference, 2020-06-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Testing and Evaluation of a Mobile Lidar and 360-Degree Spherical Camera for Rapid Mapping of Natural and Built Coastal Infrastructure", ASPRS 2020 Annual Conference, 2020-06-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Processing and Correction of UAS-SfM Surveys without Ground Control of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas", ASPRS 2020 Annual Conference, 2020-06-23, (Oral Presentation)
"Suggesting an Efficient Deep Learning Architecture for Coastal Wetland Land Cover Mapping with UAS Imagery, Joint Session on AI Applications in the Coastal Environment", AMS 19th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2020-01-15, (Oral Presentation)
"Use of sUAS for Traffic Incident Management during Suboptimal Environmental Conditions", Transportation Research Board 100th Annual Meeting, 2020-01-04, (Oral Presentation)
"Deep Learning Super-Resolution for Satellite Image Spatial-Resolution Enhancement Using Hyper-Spatial Resolution UAS Imagery for Wetland Monitoring", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2019-12-01, (Oral Presentation)
"High Resolution UAV Imagery and Airborne Lidar Data to Quantify Hurricane Impacts on an Undeveloped Barrier Island", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2019-12-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Mobile and Airborne Lidar Scanning to Assess the Impacts of Hurricane Harvey to the Beach and Foredunes on North Padre Island, Texas, USA", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2019-12-01, (Poster)
"Using Drones to Support Management Decisions on Rangelands and Pastures", 31st Annual Texas Plant Protection Conference, 2019-12-11, (Oral Presentation)
"Evaluating the Accuracy of UAS Structure-from-Motion Survey Products: Lessons Learned", Coastal Bend GIS Day, 2019-11-13, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal and Marine Applications", University of Florida Geomatics Program, 2019-11-08, (Lecture)
"Evaluating UAS Surveying for Monitoring of Oiling Events on Sandy Beaches", ASBPA Annual Conference, 2019-10-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Using UAS photogrammetry and airborne Lidar to evaluate surface change detection of an undeveloped beach following Hurricane Michael", ASBPA Annual Conference, 2019-10-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Geospatial Revolution: GIS, Lasers, and Drones", Islander Days: Touch of Class, 2019-10-19, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal Zone Monitoring of the South Texas Gulf Coast and Beyond", NOAA Hydrographic Services Review Panel (HSRP), 2019-08-28, (Oral Presentation)
"Update on UAS Activities at TAMUCC", UNOLS Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Airborne Research (SCOAR), 2019-08-22, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessing VIs Calculated From UAS-Acquired Multispectral Imaging to Detect Iron Chlorosis in Grain Sorghum", IEEE IGARSS, 2019-07-01, (Poster)
"Fully Convolutional Neural Network for Land Cover Mapping In A Coastal Wetland with Hyperspatial UAS Imagery", IEEE IGARSS, 2019-07-01, (Oral Presentation)
"Modeling DEM Error from 3D Point Clouds with Ensemble Neural Networks", 20th Annual USACE JALBTCX Airborne Coastal Mapping and Charting Workshop, 2019-06-01, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal Zone Monitoring", TGLO Academic Research Exchange, 2019-05-03, (Oral Presentation)
"EMERGING LITTORAL SURVEYING TECHNOLOGIES FOR COASTAL RESILIENCE OF", ASBPA Texas Coastal Symposium, 2019-04-16, (Poster)
"Evaluating UAS Surveying for Monitoring Oiling Events on the Texas Coast", ASBPA Texas Coastal Symposium, 2019-04-16, (Oral Presentation)
"Utilizing a terrestrial laser scanner to assess the evolution of an undeveloped beach environment in the Gulf of Mexico", ASBPA Texas Coastal Symposium, 2019-04-16, (Oral Presentation)
"The Hyperspatial Frontier: Topographic Mapping with UAS Photogrammetry and LiDAR", TxDOT Surveyors Conference, 2019-03-26, (Oral Presentation)
"Monitoring Impacts of Hurricane Harvey to Natural and Built Infrastructure with Lidar and UAS-SfM", Joint: 6th International Conference on Earth Observation for Environmental Changes and the 8th International Conference on Geo-information Technologies for Natural Disaster Management, 2019-06-24, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessing Separability of UAS-Derived Vegetation Indices for Detecting Plant Stress Due to Iron Chlorosis", ASPRS 2019 Annual Conference, 2019-01-30, (Oral Presentation)
"Evaluating UAS-SfM Change Detection for Oiling Events on the Texas Coast", ASPRS 2019 Annual Conference, 2019-01-30, (Poster)
"Evaluation of UAS Lidar vs UAS SfM – A Case Study", ASPRS 2019 Annual Conference, 2019-01-30, (Oral Presentation)
"Semantic Segmentation of Hyperspatial UAS Imagery in Wetlands Using Convolutional-Wavelet Neural Network", ASPRS 2019 Annual Conference, 2019-01-30, (Oral Presentation)
"A Machine Learning Framework for Modeling DEM Error from TLS in Wetlands", ASPRS Annual Conference, 2019-01-30, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessment of Machine Learning Ensembles for Modeling DEM Uncertainty in Marshes with Terrestrial Laser Scanning", AMS 18th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2019-01-09, (Oral Presentation)
"Estimates of Spatial Variability of Digital Elevation Models from Ensemble Neural Networks", AMS 18th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2019-01-09, (Oral Presentation)
"Sematic Segmentation of Hyperspatial UAS Imagery for Land Cover Mapping Using Convolutional-Wavelet Neural Networks", AMS 18th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2019-01-08, (Oral Presentation)
"ANN versus SVM for Modeling DEM Uncertainty in Marshes with Terrestrial Laser Scanning", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2018-12-14, (Oral Presentation)
"Evaluating UAS-SfM Change Detection for Oiling Events on Sandy Beaches", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2018-12-14, (Poster)
"Assessing Separability of UAS-Derived Vegetation Indices for Detecting Plant Stress Due to Iron Chlorosis", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2018-12-11, (Oral Presentation)
"3D Geospatial Information for Sustainable Coasts: Emerging Solutions and Applications", United Nations World Geospatial Information Congress, 2018-11-21, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal and Marine Applications", University of Florida Geomatics Program, 2018-11-16, (Oral Presentation)
"Evaluation of a Survey-Grade UAS-LiDAR", Coastal Bend GIS Day, 2018-11-14, (Oral Presentation)
"Hyperspatial 3D Point Clouds from Lidar and Drones: Applications to Wetland Segmentation and Crop Development", 2018-11-07, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessing Impacts to Natural and Built Infrastructure from Hurricane Harvey with LiDAR and UAS", American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) Annual Conference, 2018-11-01, (Oral Presentation)
"“Eyes in the Sky” UAS over South Texas", 2018-11-01, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for GIS", UASTEC Stem Night, 2018-10-06, (Oral Presentation)
"Update on UAS Activities at TAMUCC", UNOLS Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Airborne Research (SCOAR), 2018-08-22, (Oral Presentation)
"Evaluation of a Survey-Grade, Long-Range UAS Lidar System: A Case Study in South Texas, USA", IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2018-07-27, (Oral Presentation)
"A framework enabling real-time coordinate transformation and occlusion sensitive tracking using UAS products, deep learning, object detection and traditional object tracking techniques", IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, 2018-07-26, (Oral Presentation)
"Unsupervised and Deep Learning for Semantic Segmentation of Imagery and Point Cloud Data in Wetlands", 19th Annual USACE JALBTCX Airborne Coastal Mapping and Charting Workshop, 2018-06-28, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessing Coastal Change following Hurricane Harvey with Lidar and UAS Photogrammetry", American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) Texas Symposium, 2018-04-24, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS Surveying for Crop Development Over an Experimental Maize Field", UESI 2018 Surveying & Geomatics Conference, 2018-04-24, (Oral Presentation)
"Application of a Technique for Detecting and Estimating the Quantity of Macro-Litter on Beaches Using an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS)", 6th International Marine Debris Conference, 2018-03-01, (Poster)
"Assessing Impacts of Radiometric Calibration Methods on NDVI Maps Derived from UAS-Based Multispectral Imagery", ASPRS Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum, 2018-03-15, (Poster)
"Assessing Coastal Terrain Evolution Following Hurricane Harvey with TLS and UAS Data Fusion", ASPRS Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum, 2018-03-14, (Oral Presentation)
"Deep Convolutional Neural Network Based Semantic Segmentation of UAS Hyperspatial Imagery in Marshes", ASPRS Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum, 2018-03-14, (Oral Presentation)
"Unsupervised Clustering Method for Complexity Reduction of Airborne and Terrestrial 3D Point Cloud Data in Marshes", ASPRS Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum, 2018-03-14, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS-Based Multispectral Imaging for Detecting Plant Stress Due to Iron Chlorosis in Grain Sorghum", ASPRS Imaging & Geospatial Technology Forum, 2018-03-13, (Poster)
"Space-Time Cube and Cluster Representation of Evolving Landforms at Local and Regional Scales Using Lidar Time Series Data", AMS 17th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2018-01-10, (Oral Presentation)
"Unsupervised Clustering Method for Complexity Reduction of Airborne and Terrestrial 3D Point Cloud Data in Marshes", AMS 17th Conf on Artificial and Computational Intelligence and its Applications to the Environmental Sciences, 2018-01-10, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS automated lodging detection and multiple factor assessment of SfM crop height", 2017 TAMU System Internal UAS Post Season Meeting, 2018-01-09, (Oral Presentation)
"Application of a Technique for Detecting and Estimating the Quantity of Macro-Litter on Beaches Using Unmanned Aircraft System", AGU Fall Meeting, 2017-12-13, (Poster)
"Beach Geomorphology and Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) Nest Site Selection along Padre Island, Texas, USA", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2017-12-12, (Oral Presentation)
"Unsupervised Clustering Method for Complexity Reduction of Airborne and Terrestrial 3D Point Cloud Data in Marshes", American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, 2017-12-12, (Oral Presentation)
"Assessing 3D Point Cloud Fidelity of UAS-SfM Software Solutions Over Varying Terra", Coastal Bend GIS Day, 2017-11-15, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS for Coastal and Marine Applications", University of Florida Geomatics Program, 2017-11-10, (Lecture)
"Fusion of Terrestrial Laser Scanning and UAS Imaging for Marsh Observation", American Shore and Beach Preservation Association (ASBPA) Annual Conference, 2017-10-26, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS “Drones” for Geoinformatics Applications", SACNAS Annual Conference, 2017-10-21, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS-Based Multispectral Imaging for Detecting Plant Stress Due to Iron Chlorosis in Grain Sorghum", SACNAS Annual Conference, 2017-10-21, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS and Geomatics Research at TAMUCC", Chinese Academy of Surveying and Mapping, 2017-09-25, (Oral Presentation)
"UAS Over the Skies of Texas", State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LEISMARS) Seminar Series, 2017-09-23
"Update on UAS Activities at the Lone Star UAS Test Site and TAMUCC", UNOLS Scientific Committee on Oceanographic Airborne Research (SCOAR), 2017-08-16, (Oral Presentation)
"Surfzone Bathymetry Estimation Using Wave Characteristics Observed by Unmanned Aerial Systems (2020)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Mapping with lidar and structure-from-motion photogrammetry: point cloud accuracy assessment over multiple platforms (2021)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Simulation and characterization of wind impacts on sUAS flight performance for crash scene reconstruction (2021)", Drones, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Mobile and Airborne Lidar Scanning of Beach Elevation Change Due to Hurricane Harvey (2021)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Extracting Camera Pose Using Single Image Super Resolution Networks (2020)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Viewshed Simulation and Optimization for Digital Terrain Modelling with Terrestrial Laser Scanning (2020)", International Journal of Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Logistical and technical considerations for the use of unmanned aircraft systems in coastal habitat monitoring: A case study in high-resolution subaquatic vegetation assessment (2020)", Shore & Beach, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Deep Learning-Based Single Image Super-Resolution: An Investigation for Dense Scene Reconstruction with UAS Photogrammetry (2020)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"FloodSim: Flood Simulation and Visualization Framework Using Position-Based Fluids (2020)", ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Using Lidar Data to Assess the Relationship Between Beach Geomorphology and Kemp’s Ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) Nest Site Selection Along Padre Island, TX, United States (2020)", Frontiers in Marine Science, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Review and Evaluation of Deep Learning Architectures for Efficient Land Cover Mapping with UAS Hyper-Spatial Imagery: A Case Study Over a Wetland (2020)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Unsupervised Clustering of Multi-Perspective 3D Point Cloud Data in Marshes: A Case Study (2019)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Assessing VIs Calculated From UAS-Acquired Multispectral Imaging to Detect Iron Chlorosis in Grain Sorghum (2019)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Fully Convolutional Neural Network for Land Cover Mapping In A Coastal Wetland with Hyperspatial UAS Imagery (2019)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Ensemble Neural Networks for Modeling DEM Error (2019)", ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Chapter 7: Application of Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Coastal Mapping and Resiliency (2019)", (Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New)
"A Framework for Determination of Ocean Wave Properties Using Unmanned Aerial Systems (2019)", (Conference Proceeding)
"DisCountNet: Discriminating and counting network for real-time counting and localization of sparse objects in high-resolution UAV imagery (2019)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Meeting the Spatial Needs of the Third Coast (2019)", Third Coast Science For You, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Evaluation of a survey-grade, long-range UAS lidar system: a case study in South Texas (2018)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Structure-from-Motion Photogrammetry: How to Produce High-Quality 3D Point Clouds (2017)", (Magazine/Trade Publication)
"Use of Fire-Extinguishing Balls for a Conceptual System of Drone-Assisted Wildfire Fighting. Drones (2019)", Drones, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Detecting Change in a Sorghum Field Infested by Sugarcane Aphid (2018)", Southwestern Entomologist, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Virtualot – A framework enabling real-time coordinate transformation and occlusion sensitive tracking using UAS products, deep learning, object detection and traditional object tracking techniques (2018)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Characterizing canopy height with UAS structure-from-motion photogrammetry—results analysis of a maize field trial with respect to multiple factors (2018)", Remote Sensing Letters, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Using Multispectral Imagery to Map Spatially Variable Sugarcane Aphid Infestations in Sorghum (2018)", Southwestern Entomologist, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Temporal Estimates of Crop Growth in Sorghum and Maize Breeding Enabled by Unmanned Aerial Systems (2018)", The Plant Phenome Journal, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Unsupervised Clustering Method for Complexity Reduction of Terrestrial Lidar Data in Marshes. Remote Sensing (2018)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
"Fusion of UAS-based structure-from-motion and optical inversion for seamless topo-bathymetric mapping (2017)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Multi-platform UAS imaging for crop height estimation: performance analysis over an experimental corn field (2017)", (Conference Proceeding)
"Assessing Lodging Severity over an Experimental Maize (Zea mays L.) Field Using UAS Images (2017)", Remote Sensing, (Journal Article, Academic Journal)
- CMSS-6996 - RESEARCH
- GISC-4431 - REMOTE SENSING AND PHOTOGRAMME
- GSCS-6996 - RESEARCH
- GSCS-6998 - DISSERTATION RESEARCH
- GSCS-6999 - DISSERTATION DEFENSE
- GSEN-5393 - GRADUATE CREATIVE PROJECT
- GSEN-5698 - GRADUATE THESIS
- GSEN-5698 - GRADUATE THESIS-PART 2
- GSEN-6330 - SPATIAL SYSTEMS SCIENCE
- GSEN-6370 - UAS FOR SURVEYING AND MAPPING
- GSEN-6396 - DIRECTED INDEPENDENT STUDY