Todd Bacastow, Ph.D.

Penn State, Professor of Practice for Geospatial Intelligence

Dr. Todd S. Bacastow is a professor of practice for geospatial intelligence in Penn State's Dutton e-Education Institute. His primary areas of expertise include implementation and management of large-scale programs, geospatial technology policy, geospatial information technology governance, and critical infrastructure protection. Dr. Bacastow has worked with businesses and federal and state government on geospatial technology policy issues and has served on state and regional planning committees, preparing studies, providing expert testimony, and organizing numerous workshops. He teaches geospatial systems design in Penn State's master of GIS program; serves on the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation's accreditation panel developing certification guidelines for geospatial intelligence professionals; and leads a team supporting the development of the Pennsylvania Map, a component of the National Map.

Before joining Penn State, Dr. Bacastow served in the U.S. Army in a variety of civil-military, leadership, and technical positions in the United States and Europe. He was previously an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Computer Science and an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the United States Military Academy. His current research involves geospatial digital rights management, geospatial technology governance, and geospatial systems design.

Mark Corson, Ph.D.

Penn State, Associate Professor of Geography

Dr. Mark Corson is an associate professor of geography at Northwest Missouri State University, and a former faculty member in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the United States Military Academy. Dr. Corson specializes in political and military geography, with regional expertise in Europe and Southwest Asia. He teaches the Trends in GIS course in the Northwest Missouri Department of Geography's master's program and, as a visiting associate professor at Penn State, is developing the Geographic Foundations of Geospatial Intelligence course for the certificate program in geospatial intelligence.

Dr. Corson is also a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve. His military specialties are transportation and multifunctional logistics. In 2001 in Kosovo, Colonel Corson served as the deputy chief of the Multinational Brigade East Joint Implementation Commission and as liaison officer and trainer to Regional Task Group Six of the Kosovo Protection Corps. He was heavily engaged in the NATO peacekeeping effort to defuse the Presevo Valley and Macedonian insurgencies. He also commanded the 450th Movement Control Battalion during Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) 1. The 450th conducted theatre movement control functions in Iraq and later in Kuwait, from March 2003 to March 2004. It was instrumental in the planning and initial execution of the rotation of U.S. and coalition forces between OIF 1 and 2. This surge was the largest military movement since World War II. Colonel Corson now commands the 561st Regional Support Group (RSG), in Omaha, Nebraska. The 561st RSG is a brigade-level headquarters capable of conducting the full range of multifunctional logistics operations in any environment and across the spectrum of conflict.

Peter Guth, Ph.D.

Penn State, Visiting Professor of Geography

David Hall, Ph.D.

Penn State, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Programs, College of Information Sciences and Technology

Dr. David L. Hall is the associate dean for research and graduate programs in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST). He is responsible for overseeing IST's doctoral and master's degree programs, as well as its research grant administration and leadership of its faculty research efforts. He joined IST from Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory (ARL), where he served as associate director and senior scientist. At ARL he oversaw the 150-person Information and Network Systems Office, composed of four divisions: Information Science and Technology, Navigation Research and Development, Systems and Operations Automation, and Communications Science and Technology.

Dr. Hall has more than twenty-five years of experience in research, research management, and systems development. He is the author of more than 175 papers, reports, books, and book chapters, and he has delivered numerous lectures on his research, research management, and artificial intelligence. His book Mathematical Techniques in Multisensor Data Fusion has been used as a text at the State University of New York at Buffalo, George Mason University, Colorado State University, the Air Force Institute of Technology, and the Naval Postgraduate School. Dr. Hall has been a faculty member at the University of Colorado as well as Penn State, and has served on the graduate-degree candidacy committees of nearly a dozen students. Among his numerous recognitions, he has been listed in Who's Who in Frontiers of Science and Technology and the Who's Who Worldwide Registry of Business Leaders.

Prior to joining Penn State in 1993, Dr. Hall worked at HRB Systems, Inc., in State College, Pennsylvania. His most recent post with HRB was as director of research and operations programs.

Karen Schuckman M.S.

Penn State Instructor, Geospatial Intelligence Program

Karen Schuckman is an instructor in geography at Penn State, teaching remote sensing and geospatial technology in the online GIS programs offered by the Dutton e-Education Institute. She also serves as a consultant to the URS Corporation in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she provides expertise in remote sensing and photogrammetry to engineering practice groups, including floodplain mapping, disaster response and preparedness, critical infrastructure, and transportation.

As the geospatial technology leader at URS in 2005–06, Schuckman supported response, recovery, and mitigation projects with FEMA following Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma. From 1995 through 2005 she was with the EarthData group, where her positions included geospatial applications director for EarthData Solutions, senior vice president of EarthData Technologies, and president and general manager of EarthData International of North Carolina. Her notable projects for EarthData include LIDAR acquisition for the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program, numerous transportation mapping projects for state DOTs, and technology demonstration projects for NOAA, NASA, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. Prior to joining the private sector, Schuckman worked for the USGS National Mapping Division, in Menlo Park, California. She is the immediate past president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, vice chair of the NOAA Advisory Committee for Commercial Remote Sensing, and a member of the Committee on Floodplain Mapping Technologies of the National Research Council.