Chris Justice, Kathleen Stewart, Laixiang Sun, Kuishang Feng and Mengxue Li (BSOS) attended an International Workshop on Remote Sensing and GIS of Environment and Natural Resources: Data, Methods and Applications hosted by Beijing Normal University, June 10-11, 2019. The workshop was sponsored by Beijing Normal University (BNU) and the State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing and featured sessions on Remote Sensing for Global Agriculture, Remote Sensing for Water Resources and the Water Cycle,  Remote Sensing Monitoring of Vegetation and Terrestrial Ecology,  Remote Sensing for Natural Disaster Reduction and Geographical Information Analysis and Spatial Statistics. In the light of the recent letter from President Loh, the Maryland Delegation discussed opportunities for continued international academic cooperation and the relationship to the Geographical Sciences Center for Remote Sensing and Spatial Analysis. The Dept. of Geographical Sciences has a long-standing relationship with BNU. In 2012 a Joint Center on Global Change and Earth System Science between the University of Maryland and Beijing Normal University (BNU). The MOU for the Center expired in 2017 and discussions during the visit included current opportunities for strengthening international collaboration and broadening engagement on geographic information science and sustainability research. Opportunities discussed included, visiting scientists and graduate students, Masters degree program, undergraduate study abroad and a rotating international workshop. 

Right to left Chris Justice (GEOG Chair), Wu Junju (Associate Dean of the Faculty of Geographical Science, BNU), Kathleen Stewart (Director GEOG GI Science Center), Mengxue Li (Asst Dean Int. Affairs, UMD BSOS), Suju Li (Associate Director, National Center for Natural Disaster Reduction), Miguel Roman (USRA), Yanchen Bo (State Key Lab. of Remote Sensing Science, BNU)