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12:00 PM (ET)
U.S.
Zoom link
https://virginiatech.zoom.us/j/89121062364
Research Professor
University of Miami,
Formerly, Assistant Chief of Technology, Software, NASA Goddard
Building Geospatial Digital Twins
Abstract: First introduced in 2002 for Product Lifecycle Management, Digital Twins (DTs) were designed to provide a “twin” of any physical system throughout its entire lifecycle, i.e., for maintaining a parallel information system or a digital system mimicking continuously a physical system. Since 2002, this concept has been widely adopted, adapted and generalized to various other domains, such as infrastructure development, the aerospace and automotive industry, and more recently to the human body, to smart cities and to Earth system. The main difference when considering DTs for medical or Earth system applications compared to engineering DTs is that no exact “initial construct” is available for the human body or Earth systems. In particular, for Earth Science, Earth systems are represented by models summarizing our understanding of these systems and based on physical processes and on historical data. But, although not exact, these Earth system “digital replicas” integrated in “Earth System Digital Twins (ESDTs)” provide very powerful tools to represent, forecast and conjecture Earth systems behavior and impact.
In this talk, we will define the general concepts of Digital Twin and Earth System Digital Twin, we will look at various applications of Digital Twins in the Earth and Space domains, and we will review what constitutes a general framework for building Geospatial Digital Twins, various architecture components as well as essential technologies that will make Digital Twins possible, including flexible data access and structures, AI such as Foundation Models and Causal AI, advanced computing such as Edge and Quantum Computing and cybersecurity tools such as blockchains. We will also discuss challenges related to interoperability, federation of various digital twins and knowledge meshes or ontologies.
Jacqueline Le Moigne is a Visiting Research Professor at the University of Miami. Jacqueline retired from NASA where, until April 2025, she was managing the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO)’s Intelligent Systems Technology (IST) Group and the Advanced Modeling Technology (AMT) Program. IST mainly focused on information and software systems as well as novel computer science technologies to enable future Earth Science observations and missions. Prior to managing IST, Jacqueline was NASA Goddard Assistant Chief for Technology in the Software Engineering Division. She was also Transition & Topic Lead for the Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program and was part of the team that developed NASA Space Technology Roadmaps (2011 and 2015). Before joining NASA, she was a Research Scientist with the Computer Vision Laboratory of the University of Maryland and has also worked in the private sector.
Jacqueline received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Sorbonne University, Pierre and Marie Curie Campus, Paris, France. Her research interests include Image Registration, Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Systems, Distributed Spacecraft Missions (DSM), and Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT), as well as high-performance and onboard computing.
Jacqueline has over 200 publications including more than 30 journal papers and book chapters. She authored an edited book and earned three Patents, all on the topic of Image Registration. She has been an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Program Evaluator, a member of NATO’s Advisory Panel for the Science for Peace and Security Program, an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, and a Goddard Senior Fellow. She is currently Expert for the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency and Action Editor for GeoInformatica. She received a NASA Exceptional Service Medal as well as of the Goddard Information Science and Technology Award, both in 2012. In 2025, she was elected IEEE Fellow.
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