Raúl Zurita

“I enrolled in a PhD programme, also in Wageningen. My PhD topic was remote sensing data fusion. The starting point for this topic is that there is no universally good sensor. All types of sensors come with trade-offs. For instance, some sensors give a lot of spectral information but don’t have enough spatial resolution. Other sensors have high spatial resolution but not enough temporal resolution. My PhD was about combining the different data sources into datasets with optimum spectral, spatial and temporal resolutions.”

“I wanted to continue combining my engineering and scientific knowledge and share it with others. When I was in Wageningen I already made some trips to Enschede to attend ITC conferences. At those occasions ITC struck me as an important faculty with a great deal of diversity in terms of people, nationalities, and expertise. The mission of ITC has always appealed to me too, as it is about solving challenges faced by the majority of the world. That is what I want to spend my time doing. When I chose ITC, there was also a vacant position elsewhere that I could have gone for. What shifted the balance was that ITC mission to which I wanted to contribute.”

“I focused on multi-scale data integration, which was pretty much a continuation of what I did during my PhD. However, I soon discovered that there are different interpretations. At ITC vector data proved to be very prominent, whereas I was coming from the raster world. So I had to learn a lot of new things about data integration. In that sense, joining ITC has been quite educational as well. That is also one of the reasons why I love academia: I want to be a student forever, and the best way to reach that goal is by working in academia. Every day there are things to be learnt.”

“A bit of both. For some it works well to be purely a teacher, others are perfectly happy only doing research. I think the best thing is combining the two. In my department we do a lot of research and technical work, and this slowly percolates into my lectures. By discussing these topics with students and colleagues I also get positive feedback; new ideas for research, new things to elaborate on with my students or on my own. Many people say that researchers are in the business of answering questions, but I think that as a researcher I am in the business of creating relevant new questions. That process is greatly helped by the interaction I have with students as a teacher.”

“When I started at ITC in 2008, I got a four-year contract. When it came close to expiring, a vacancy stop was in force because of the economic situation. Instead of hiring new people, ITC chose to promote internal development. In my case, the way to remain in the service of ITC would be to apply for a tenure track position, so that’s what I did. At the time I didn’t know the first thing about the tenure track system. I found it very challenging. However, apart from the necessity caused by the vacancy stop, it was an opportunity for me to discover my true passion and deepen my knowledge. Besides, the tenure track made me realize that science is not only about teaching and writing papers. There is also a lot of management and policy-making involved – which we may like or dislike, but it’s part of what academia is.”

“First of all, it was successful in the sense that I am now a full professor. On a more critical note, being a tenure tracker convinced me that the process should not be about ticking boxes or doing things just because they need to be done to progress. In that regard, my tenure track made me more conscious of what I really wanted to do. I now know the type of academic I want to be. To me academic life is not about having a long CV, with all the papers you wrote and all the grants you acquired. It’s a way of living, no matter how naive or clichéd that may sound. I am happy to invest my time in educating others and myself, and working with others, and I don’t care that much about impressive rankings and achievements. All too often they are also a way of showing off.”

“So far, because of the pandemic, being a full professor has been very different from what I always imagined. However, I did have the opportunity to order my gown and wear it on several occasions. That made me realize that wearing the gown brings a moral obligation, a duty towards society. Being a professor makes people have expectations about you. It’s a big responsibility because I want to do things that are not only close to my heart but also morally justified. Anyway, I find it rewarding to be in a position where I can start important actions and initiatives, and engage more people to work in a certain direction.”

“A lot of people think of academia as a continuous ladder. The full professors are all the way up there, below them are the associate and assistant professors, and further down the lecturers and so on. But I am convinced that the world is a lot more complex, and that academia is not so linear. Of course, as a full professor I have ambitions, but that also goes for all those other colleagues. Some think that you need to climb the ladder in order to be successful. I don’t agree with that. I think that people can function very well at different levels. Me ending up as a professor is not a coincidence, but it is not something that I always dreamt of as a child. And I don’t believe becoming professor has changed my ambitions as such.”

“Let me try to explain that with a metaphor. A full professor is also called a chair holder. Professors have their own chair; a place to sit and discuss things with others. There are two important aspects to having this chair. On the one hand, I can take my chair to the big meetings about policy making and management and claim my place at the table. On the other hand, I can turn my chair around and sit with students and colleagues to discuss certain topics. As the chair is domain oriented, it also gives me the opportunity to develop specific new ideas and delve deeper than before in spatio-temporal analytics. So, the chair allows me to cover the entire range of what academia is about. I think that is the best thing about my new position.”