UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Daniel Selik, a student in the intercollege Master of Professional Studies in Homeland Security (iMPS-HLS) degree program at Penn State and a retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer, received the 2021 Michael P. Murphy Award in Geospatial Intelligence.
He was presented with the award at the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) Geoint 2021 Symposium held in October in St. Louis.
Beth King, associate teaching professor and assistant program manager of the online geospatial education program received the 2021 Carolyn Merry Mentoring Award from the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS).
“It was a pleasant surprise,” King said. “And I am thankful to my colleagues who nominated me.”
Diana Sinton, the executive director of the UCGIS, said King received the award due to her mastery at building rapport.
A parent in Philadelphia needs information to help her daughter with a class project on wet weather pollution control in the school yard rain garden.
Elsewhere in the U.S., a furloughed government worker seeks professional development during a shutdown. In Brazil, a woman is interested in learning more about the changing climate, and in Zimbabwe, a GIS technician wants a reliable source of professional information.
More and more companies are using location data from devices like smartphones and tablets to gain insights into choices consumers make. As the volume and complexity of location data increases, the demand for the professionals with the technical skills to leverage these data is also increasing.
A new degree from Penn State, a master of science in spatial data science, aims to address that growing need.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — When Lauren Maloney trained in military intelligence with the U.S. Air Force, she was impressed by how much information could be conveyed by geospatial intelligence, which uses images and data to analyze activity in specific locations.
s Hurricane Dorian made landfall on Grand Bahama Island in 2019 and bushfires engulfed Australia in 2020, emergency teams were busy creating plans to best respond and provide relief to those affected by the disasters.
Here is something to think about: Some of Penn State’s current Department of Geography students weren’t even born when Online Geospatial Education at Penn State offered its first class. While online classes are now considered normal, for the educators who launched these distance education courses in the late 1990s, it was a novel and risky venture.
Brookelynn Constant was about halfway into her 10-year career as a data analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense when she enrolled in a master’s program through Penn State World Campus.
Constant, who always wanted to squeeze graduate school into her busy schedule, took advantage of the online-learning format for the master of geographic information systems (GIS) as a way to elevate her leadership role with the U.S. Defense Department.
Penn State has launched a new graduate certificate aimed at helping geospatial professionals working in the GIS and web mapping industries to expand their software development and coding skills.
