Derek Lichti is Professor in the Department of Geomatics Engineering at the University of Calgary, which he joined in 2008. He served as Head of the Department for the period 2013-2018. Following the completion of his PhD in 1999, he worked as an academic at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, until 2007. His research program focuses on imaging metrology, which is concerned with precision 3D reality capture from imaging sensors, principally terrestrial laser scanners and digital cameras. Some of his research projects include documentation of at-risk cultural heritage sites, as-built modelling of industrial environments, wear and damage assessment in structures and industrial machinery and dimensional control.
He is currently a Director of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society – Société canadienne de télédétection (CRSS-SCT) and a member of the Council of the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). He has served the ISPRS in a number of capacities over the past two decades. This includes two terms (2004-2008; 2008-2012) as Chair of the ISPRS Working Group on Terrestrial Laser Scanning. Between 2013 and 2020, he served as Editor-in-Chief of the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He is currently ISPRS Congress Director, responsible for organization of the 2026 ISPRS Congress in Toronto.
