John R. Apel; Seasat: A spacecraft views the marine environment with microwave sensors, Proceedings of MTS/IEEE OCEANS'75 Conference, pp. 803 - 815, September 1975.
John R. Apel received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in physics and mathematics from the University of Maryland and the Ph.D. degree in applied physics from The Johns Hopkins University in 1970.
He is a physicist/oceanographer with a 40-year career of research, program management, publication, and editing. He has been a pioneer in the application of remotely sensed data to the study of the physics of the sea, combining geophysical fluid dynamics with an understanading of the underlying principles of remote measurement. After receiving the Ph.D. degree, he next spent 13 years as a Research Physicist at Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland. He then joined the U.S. Government with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), first as Director of the Ocean Remote Sensing Laboratory in Miami, FL, and then as Director of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, WA. During his 12 years with NOAA, he was also an Adjunct Professor of Physics at the University of Miami and Affiliate Professor of Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. In 1982, he returned to The Johns Hopkins University APL as Assistant Director and, in 1985, turned back to research and editing as Chief Scientist of the Milton S. Eisenhower Research Center. He has also taught at The Johns Hopkins University. While at APL, he earned five awards for outstanding publishing and editing. He is known as the "Father" of the first ocean-viewing satellite, SEASAT, having been detailed to NASA Headquarters for a year to lead that program through its early evolution. He has also served on many international commissions and committees. He has edited five publications ranging from a newspaper through scientific journals to a book series. He is currently president of Global Ocean Associates, Silver Spring, MD, a research and development organization specializing in the physics of the sea and in the physical interpretation of remote measurements of the global ocean from satellites and aircraft. He is presently involved in the study of continental shelf dynamics, using a combination of in situ measurements with satellite data. He also consults with governments and commercial organizations in the U.S.A. and abroad, and he has published almost 100 papers and book chapters, including a graduate-level textbook, Principles of Ocean Physics.
Dr. Apel is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Technical Sciences, the Electromagnetics Academy, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Explorers Club, and the Cosmos Club, and is listed in American Men and Women of Science and Who's Who in America. For his efforts on SEASAT, he was awarded a Gold Medal from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1974. He has received three distinguished publication awards from NOAA and two awards for achievement from NOAA and NASA.