ABOUT US
The mission of ORSSIR is to promote use of leading-edge geospatial information technologies for inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research concerning basic and applied aspects of environmental science within the context of the Penn State Institutes of the Environment.
This entails maintaining currency of knowledge with the evolution of geospatial information technologies, participating in investigations of multi-disciplinary research projects involving environmental geoinformatics, leading and participating in the development of innovative approaches to geospatial information, helping to provide training opportunities for young investigators that may find geospatial information technologies pertinent to their research endeavors and helping more senior scientists to develop an appreciation for the potential roles of geospatial technologies in their fields of environmental study, acting as liaison for coupling needs and sources of expertise in advanced geospatial information technologies, promoting outreach through conferences and workshops, facilitating access to existing environmentally relevant geospatial information, and fostering a collegial atmosphere for collaboration.
Organization
Dr. Wayne L. Myers, Professor of Forest Biometrics serves as the Director of ORSSIR and Principal Investigator for several focal area and Dr. Doug Miller serves as the Co-director. Ms. Maurie Kelly is the director of Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access and Informatics and Dr. Barry Evans is the director of the GIS Support Center.
Dr. Eric Warner and George Baumer conduct remote sensing and geospatial analysis under the auspices of ORSSIR and and Penn State Institutes of Environment. Access to geospatial data is provided through PASDA -- Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access web-based facility through the technical expertise of Ryan Baxter, David Walrath, James Spayd, Chis Pfeiffer and others. The PASDA spatial data warehouse is funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through the Governor's Office of Administration, Office of Information Technology, Bureau of Geospatial Technologies.