Faculty

Kelleann Foster is a proven leader in design and an invited speaker at many national and international design-, planning-, and technology-focused conferences. She is a registered landscape architect whose work is rooted in outreach that is interdisciplinary and forward-thinking in many respects. She is lead faculty for online geodesign graduate programs, director of The Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and associate dean of the College of Arts and Architecture at Penn State. Her work advances technologies to communicate alternative scenarios to citizens. She is author of the Wiley book Becoming a Landscape Architect: A Guide to Careers in Design.

Dr. Michael Flaxman's primary research interest is in participatory tools for spatial simulation modeling as applied to the planning and design of cities and regions. He has served on the faculties of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, University of Oregon, and Penn State. He has practiced GIS–based planning in 17 countries. Dr. Flaxman previously served as an industry manager at Esri, the world's largest developer of GIS technology.

David Goldberg is an assistant professor of landscape architecture and technology operations manager for the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. He is advancing landscape architecture education and practice by developing the role of landscape architects in interdisciplinary design. From an award-winning collaborative interdisciplinary design studio, he researches building and geographic information modeling, as it relates to site design in the integrated project delivery process. He contributed to curriculum development of the online geodesign graduate program. Through this initiative and his work with the interdisciplinary studio, he is developing techniques for remote collaboration and online studio critiques, using virtual world simulators and dynamic displays.

Dr. Mintai Kim is an environmental planner and landscape architect. He has nearly 30 years of extensive GIS research experience and geodesign-related teaching experience. His research focuses on environmental disturbances resulting from urbanization and other human activities, such as habitat loss, stream degradation, California wildfires, and light pollution. He seeks to solve problems caused by disturbances, using a geodesign framework as demonstrated by his award-winning journal paper, Teaching Coastal Resilience Using Geodesign: A Study of Virginia Beach. His research is supported by the Korean government and the U.S. National Park Service.

Dr. Brian Lee applies geospatially based analyses and visualization to community decision–making processes for land use planning, primarily at the watershed/landscape scale in his research and teaching. He is the landscape architecture director of Undergraduate Studies and has been responsible for teaching and managing a variety of courses at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. His geospatial applications courses are cross-listed with the natural resources and environmental science program and with students from forestry, Earth and environmental sciences, biosystems engineering, plant and soil science, public health, and anthropology.

James Sipes is an award-winning environmental planner, landscape architect, and writer with more than 30 years of experience encompassing a wide range of design and planning projects. His work includes environmental planning and design, land use planning, watershed management, low-impact development, urban design, cultural resource management, and community-based design. He has received national recognition, having written more than 350 articles for a variety of publications and several books on environmental issues, green infrastructure, and water resources.

Caitlin Smith specializes in planning and design of regional landscapes, using principles of landscape ecology and geographic information systems to inform design decisions and the development of environmental policy. She is a project manager at Esri with the state and local governments team. Previously, she practiced geodesign at a top firm in Canada — O2 Planning + Design in Alberta. She has also been involved in the development of a nonprofit called GoodLands, whose mission is to help the Catholic Church manage its vast global land holdings for good through the use of mapping and geospatial technology.