for EarthData Solutions, the organization’s GIS arm; senior vice-president of EarthData Technologies, the organization’s research and development group; and president and general manager of EarthData’s North Carolina office, where she was a collaborator in designing and implementing the first-of-its-kind lidar statewide floodplain mapping program for the State of North Carolina. Prior to joining the private sector, she worked for the USGS National Mapping Division, in Menlo Park, California. She is active in ASPRS and has held numerous offices within that organization, including ASPRS president in 2005. She has a B.S. in meteorology and has done graduate work in meteorology, geography, and civil engineering (surveying and photogrammetry). She has recently joined the geography faculty at the Pennsylvania State University and will be instructing courses in remote sensing and lidar in the World Campus Certificate in Geographic Information Systems, Geospatial Intelligence, and master’s of GIS programs.

Ramesh Shrestha is a professor of the Division of Geosensing Systems Engineering (GSE) in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida (UF). His main research activities are associated with the application of advanced geodetic and remote sensing techniques, particularly airborne laser swath mapping (ALSM), ground-based laser scanning, and airborne digital photography, to the study of geosurficial processes and engineering problems. Recent research projects have included mapping erosion of sandy beaches; post-hurricane evaluation of beach and dune areas; identifying landslide areas and quantifying slide movements; and evaluating ALSM, ground-based laser scanning, and digital photography for detecting and locating obstructions near airports. He teaches graduate courses in geodesy, geodetic positioning including the Global Positioning System (GPS), adjustment computations, and geodetic surveys. He is the principal investigator for the NSF-funded National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM), which is operated jointly by UF and the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley. He is also the director of the Geosensing Engineering and Mapping (GEM) Research Center for Natural Disasters, the mission and goals of which are to provide state-of-the-art research capabilities in geosensing systems engineering (GSE) and mapping using new and evolving technologies. He leads the GSE academic group and the Optech Center for Excellence in Laser Mapping, and manages the ALSM research laboratory. He is a member of the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.S. in land surveying sciences, an M.S. in civil Engineering, and a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering.

Elizabeth A. Eide, Study Director, is a senior program officer with the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources at the National Academies. Her areas of expertise include geochronology