Dr. Lutz Richter
We thank Dr. Lutz Richter for his contribution to our society as the General Secretary. He was elected as General Secretary at our annual Board of Directors meeting at the 16th ISTVS International Conference in Turin, Italy, in 2008.
Since then, he has served ISTVS for more than 10 years. During his secretaryship, we cannot forget his initiative and enthusiasm for launching an ISTVS website. The website has been maintained since in depth by Lutz, Jenna Dixon, and supporting staff, including a second-generation site launched in 2012.
Moreover, through his strong connection with international researchers on space technologies, he strengthened the activity of ISTVS in planetary robotics which is coming back to an Apollo Program where extraterrestrial terramechanics is indeed required. Nowadays, planetary robotics have become an important session in our international conferences and young graduate students working on robotic rovers are interested in attending our conferences. He continues to serve as the chair of our robotics committee, as the lead editor on the planetary robotics page of the ISTVS Resource Initiative, and he also chairs meetings of the robotics committee often as part of our international conferences.
Lutz, we acknowledge your voluntary work as General Secretary for such a long time. We must say that please take a rest after retiring as General Secretary, but we also hope that you will continuously support our activities as 2nd Vice President of the ISTVS, and Regional Secretary for Western Central Europe, and as chair of our robotics committee.
Dr. Hiroshi Nakashima
ISTVS President
Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University