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Research
Grants and Funding Opportunities by College
Penn State GIScience Research Centers
Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI)
Penn State Institutes of the Environment (PSIE)
The Land Analysis Laboratory (LAL)
Institute of State and Regional Affairs (ISRA) at Penn State Harrisburg
Geographic Information Analysis (GIA) Core, Social Science Research Institute (SSRI)
Geographic Visualization Science, Technology, and Applications
Center (GeoVISTA)
The North-East Visualization & Analytics Center (NEVAC)
College of Engineering
College of the Liberal Arts
Penn State College of Medicine - Hershey Medical Center
The Pennsylvania State University Maps Library
Details for each follow below.
Earth and Environmental Systems Institute (EESI)
The Earth and Environmental Systems Institute works to develop initiatives or centers that focus on compelling scientific,
social and engineering issues and problems that require the expertise of more than a single researcher or even
a single department. Penn State's Earth System Science Center (ESSC)
brings together the Departments of Geosciences, Meteorology, Geography, and Energy, Environmental, and Mineral
Economics to search for links between the Earth's physical processes and past and future global change.
Penn State Institutes of the Environment (PSIE)
The Institutes of the Environment (IE) is an interdisciplinary research program focused on the discovery and
transfer of knowledge in the use and management of environmental resources. The Institute's Office for Remote
Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) maintains a wide range of digital spatial information analysis packages and
GIS software in a distributed computing environment. The Institute's Geographic Information Systems Support Center
established in cooperation with Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to assist DEP and other
Commonwealth agencies with the application of GIS and associated digital mapping technologies. PSIE is also home
to the Center for Spatial Innovations in the Environment (CSI) which manages the geospatial data clearinghouse for
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access (PASDA)
http://www.pasda.psu.edu and the National Biological Information Infrastructure Fisheries and Aquatic Resources
Node (FAR) http://far.nbii.gov, and provides digital mapping technology support to
Smart Conservation http://www.smartconservation.org, Explore
PA History http://www.explorepahistory.com, Pennsylvania
Breeding Bird Atlas http://www.carnegiemnh.org/atlas/index.htm,
and other web-based projects.
The Land Analysis Laboratory (LAL)
The Land Analysis Laboratory is a research, extension, and teaching facility located within the Department of
Agronomy, College of Agricultural Sciences that specializes in the use of geographic information systems (GIS)
and related advanced information system technologies for environmental assessment and land management. The site
provides a link to the Land Analysis Laboratory WebGis server. The
server modules allow users to view, thematically map, download and manipulate various kinds of GIS
data.
Institute of State and Regional Affairs (ISRA) at Penn State
Harrisburg
The Center for Geographic Information Services (CGIS) is an interdisciplinary research and training unit of ISRA at Penn State Harrisburg. The Center provides support for research, education, and outreach efforts requiring the use and analysis of spatial information. This includes direct assistance to faculty, students, and staff and the development of occasional seminars and workshops on GIS software and applications. In addition, ISRA includes the Pennsylvania State Data Center (PaSDC) serving as the Commonwealth's official source of demographic and economic data. PaSDC offers a wide variety of products and services such as population estimates, projections and many social, housing, and economic characteristics.
Geographic Information Analysis (GIA) Core, Social Science
Research Institute (SSRI)
The Geographic Information Analysis Core is primarily housed within the
Population Research Institute (PRI) of
the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI). The GIA Core provides
expert advice in applying spatial-analytical methods, GIS programming and technical support, supporting GIS
fieldwork activities (e.g. global positioning systems), archiving and managing georeferenced or spatial data,
producing and analyzing census geodemographic maps, conducting user training, and application of spatial
analytical techniques to demographic research.
Geographic Visualization Science, Technology, and Applications
Center (GeoVISTA)
GeoVISTA conducts innovative research in GIScience, with the goal to develop powerful human-centered methods
and technologies that make it possible for scientists and decision makers to solve scientific, social, and
environmental problems through computer-supported, visually-enabled analysis of geospatial data.
The North-East Visualization & Analytics Center (NEVAC)
The North-East Visualization and Analytics Center began in 2005 with a grant from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL leads the Department of Homeland Security's National Visualization and Analytics Center, or NVAC, which is bringing academic expertise to the nation's efforts to discover information that may warn officials of a terrorist attack. The Penn State led North-East Visualization and Analytic Center (NEVAC) is one of five Regional Visualization and Analytics Centers (RVACs) that are now part of the NVAC Consortium.
College of Engineering
The College of Engineering's Center for Intelligent Transportation System
(CITranS) serves as a focal point for advanced technologies research as well as the application of advanced
technologies to surface transportation systems including highways, railroads, and transit systems.
College of the Liberal Arts
The College of the Liberal Arts' Anthropology
Department's research program emphasizes an interdisciplinary research approach conducted by archaeology
students and faculty with frequent collaboration of researchers from the departments of agronomy, geography,
history, and classics and ancient Mediterranean studies. A Geographic Information System (GIS) is currently
being developed within the department for sophisticated spatial analyses of cultural and ecological
data.
Penn State College of Medicine - Hershey Medical
Center
Research is an integral part of the College of Medicine
mission. The General Clinical Research Center at Penn State Hershey Medical Center established by the National
Institutes of Health and provides an environment where clinical investigators can observe and study human
physiology entities and their treatment. Research conducted by Health Evaluation Sciences incorporates
bio-statistics, clinical epidemiology, and Geographic Information System (GIS) to spatially analyze disease and
epidemics.
The Pennsylvania State University Maps
Library
This site is an on-line hub for information about the Pennsylvania State University Maps Library's map (paper
and digital) holdings and availability. The site also provides numerous links to local, national, and
international spatial data including maps and GIS data.