Dr. Alex Goetz was the founding director of the Center for Study of Earth from Space (CSES), now the Earth Science and Observation Center (ESOC). He was a pioneer in remote sensing techniques, particularly hyperspectral instrumentation and data, in the study of earth and environmental science. Read more about his work in the paper, "The contributions of Dr. Alexander F.H. Goetz to imaging spectrometry."

Goetz had an illustrious career working at Bell Labs and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), including on the Apollo program and Voyager missions. He later started and ran the earth-oriented geologic remote sensing program at JPL. He was recruited to CU Boulder in 1985 by CIRES to establish and direct CSES (now ESOC), and he served as a CIRES Fellow and Professor of Geological Sciences from 1985-2006.

Read Goetz's obituary in the Daily Camera.