OpenEyes99:
Remote-Sensing Operations in Humanitarian Emergencies

Thursday and Friday, April 15-16, 1999

United States Institute of Peace, 1200 17th St. NW,
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20036-3011

CONTENTS

Overview

Speaker Biographies

Einar Bjorgo

Jean Yves Bouchardy

Dr. Bouchardy is Senior Information Officer (geographer), for the Geographic Information/Mapping Unit at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. He is Responsible for Geographic Information and environmental component. Support to field operations where he conceptualized, initiated and established the UNHCR Environmental/Mapping database as a support to refugee programs; created and integrated Geographical components in refugee programs and developed environmental assessment projects. Previous to his work at UNHCR, Dr. Bourchardy was Maitre de Conference (Associate Professor), Department of Geography, Rennes University, France; a consultant for UNITAR (UN Research and Training Institute) Geneva working on GIS project development applied to environmental managment in developing countries, and was a Project Manager for IGN-FI (French National Mapping Group), Paris analyzing desertification in Western Africa using satellite images, aerial photos and Geographical Information Systems. He received his Ph.D in 1992 from Grenoble University (science faculty), France in Geography, Geographical Information Systems, Remote Sensing applied to environmental management.

Carmelle J. Cote

Ms. Cote joined Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI), in 1996. as a GIS consultant/project manager and international liaison, and works in the ESRI-Washington, D.C. regional office. Ms. Cote received a Ph.D. in geography, specializing in geographic information systems (GISs), from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1999. She has over six years of experience working with GIS and ARC/INFO as well as three years experience using ArcView. Before coming to ESRI, Ms. Cote worked as a research assistant for the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), in Buffalo, New York; conducted background research for the New York State Temporary GIS Council, and participated in the development of a GIS for the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County. Ms. Cote also assisted the National Science Foundation and the Housing and Urban Development Agency with the conference on "Geographic Information and Human Capital Research," in Boulder, Colorado. She conducted initial research with Professor Robert Reis, on NCGIA Initiative 16: Law, Information Policy and Spatial Databases. Since 1994, Ms. Côté has been a guest lecturer for the Department of Geography and the School of Law at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Prior to 1994, Ms. Cote worked as a consultant for the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C. and worked as a research associate for the United Nation's Institute for Training and Research, Environmental Training Programmes and the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis in Geneva, Switzerland. She developed a potential UNITAR/NCGIA International Networking Programme for environmental management and GIS professionals and institutions within the context of existing UNITAR and NCGIA training programs. Prior to her UN experience Ms. Cote worked as a geography instructor at the State University of New York, teaching an Introduction to Physical Geography course, and from the autumn of 1992 through the fall of 1993, Ms. Cote worked at the Great Lakes Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the Buffalo River Project as a research assistant.

Maxx Dilley

Dr. Dilley is an Associate Scientist with the University of Wisconsin Disaster Management Center. In this capacity he servese as Science Advisor to the U.S. Agency for International Development's Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) in Washington D.C. Current responsibilities include disaster early warning, prevention and preparedness, food security and vulnerability assessment, and geographic information. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Delaware and Master of Science and Doctoral degrees from the Pennsylvania State University, all in Geography. He was an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow at OFDA for two years prior to accepting his present position in 1994. Dr. Dilley's publications are primarily in the areas of climatology, agriculture and disaster mitigation.

Cliff Kottman

Cliff Kottman is Vice President and Chief Scientist for the Open GIS Consortium. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Iowa, and has worked in:

• Academia (as Associate Professor of Mathematics at Oregon State University, among other places),
• in Government (as Program Manager for a $300M project for the Defense Mapping Agency, among other places)
• in Industry (at Lockheed and Intergraph, among other places) and
• for Not-For-Profit organizations such as his current job.

Robert Kahn

Robert E. Kahn is Chairman, CEO and President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), which he founded in 1986 after a thirteen year term at the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). After receiving a B.E.E. from the City College of New York in 1960, Dr. Kahn earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University in 1962 and 1964, respectively. He worked on the Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories and then became an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT. He took a leave of absence from MIT to join Bolt, Beranek and Newman, where he was responsible for the system design of the Arpanet, the first packet-switched network. In 1972 he moved to DARPA and subsequently became director of DARPA's Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). Dr. Kahn conceived the idea of open-architecture networking. He is a co-inventor of the TCP/IP protocols (with Vint Cerf) and was responsible for originating DARPA's Internet Program which he led for the first three years; Dr. Kahn also coined the term National Information Infrastructure (NII). He is a co-inventor of Knowbot programs, mobile software agents in the network environment. Dr. Kahn holds membership in the National Academy of Engineering and formerly, in its Computer Science and Technology Board, and is a Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of AAAI, a recipient of the AFIPS Harry Goode Memorial Award, the Marconi Award, the ACM SIGCOMM Award, the President's Award from ACM, the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Computer and Communications Award, the ACM Software Systems Award, the Computerworld/Smithsonian Award, the ASIS Special Award and the Public Service Award from the Computing Research Board. He was twice the recipient of the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award. Dr. Kahn is a former member of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine and the President's Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure. He has been designated as recipient of the 1997 IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal.

Dennis King

Dennis King is currently ReliefWeb Information Manager for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), based in New York. He is a member of the original design team of ReliefWeb, which was officially launched in October 1996. He represented ReliefWeb at USIP's Managing Communications Conference in 1996 and the Virtual Diplomacy Conference in 1997. Prior to joining the United Nations, Mr. King worked for twelve years for the U.S. Agency for International Development, Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA) and headed that office's Information Support Unit. He also served as information officer on USAID/OFDA Disaster Assistance Response Teams sent to Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Mozambique and Zaire. Mr. King received his Masters Degree in International Relations from Columbia University and his Bachelors Degree in Journalism from the University of Florida. Following graduation from Columbia, he worked as a research assistant for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" news radio program.

John Pike

John Pike, Director of the Space Policy Project at the Federation of American Scientists, coordinates research, analysis and advocacy on military and civilian space policy, and other national security issues. A former political consultant and science writer, Mr. Pike is the author of over 200 studies and articles on space and national security, and co-author of the book The Impact of US and Soviet Ballistic Missile Defense Programs on the ABM Treaty. In 1983 Pike initiated the Space Policy Working Group, consisting of public interest and Congressional staff working on space and national security issues, and chaired the Group through 1984. And in 1994 and 1995 he convened the Military Spending Working Group, a weekly meeting of advocacy and policy organizations focused on alternative security strategies. He was active in the formation of the National Campaign to Save the ABM Treaty, and served on its Executive Committee. He currently serves on the Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Peace Research and European Security Studies Center, and the Advisory Board of the Verification Technology Information Center of London. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1986 the National Journal named Pike as one of the 150 "People Who Make a Difference" in Washington. In 1988 U.S. News and World Report, citing his work on space and defense, listed him among the 250 members of the "New American Establishment." In 1991 he received the Public Service Award of the Federation of American Scientists. And in 1994 he was named one of the 25 "Rising Stars Who Will Lead us into the Next Space Age" by the National Space Society's Ad Astra magazine. In 1991 he participated in the NASA International Near-Earth Object (NEO) Detection Panel, and currently serves as a consultant to the NEO Working Group of the International Astronomical Union. He has served as a Technical Consultant to the United Nations Group of Government Experts on Confidence Building Measures in Outer Space, as well as to a variety of other government and corporate clients, including Cable News Network, National Public Radio, Universal Studios and the British Broadcasting Corporation. He advised the 1984 Mondale campaign, the 1988 Dukakis campaign, and the 1992 Clinton campaign on defense and space policy issues. He is frequently called on by print and broadcast media for commentary, and by Congressional Committees for testimony, on space and national security issues.

David Smith

David G. Smith is chief of the newly-created Geographic Information Center for the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), Office of the Geographer and Global Issues at the US Department of State. Prior to that, he has been Division Chief for Middle America and the Caribbean in INR's Office of Analysis for the American Republics. Other previous positions have included Political Officer at US Embassy Brasilia (Brazil); INR foreign affairs analyst for Cuba, and INR foreign affairs analyst for Brazil. He holds a B.A. in economics from Rice University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in Latin American history. He has done post-doctoral graduate study in demography at Georgetown University and in geography at George Mason University.

Nate Smith

Serves as a specialist for acquisition and developing map-based information. Responsible for cartographic representation of OFDA field activities and other field information of operational relevance. Works with information specialists and assistant action officers to coordinate map information flow to and from the field, for situation reports and briefings, for strategic planning and response coordination, and for results monitoring.

Nate was an Applications Specialist and Cartographer with Emergency Information System International for nearly four years prior to joining OFDA. He has a BA in geography from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Nate is a Firefighter and Emergency Medical Technician with the Silver Spring Volunteer Fire Department.

For More Information

To learn more about the work of the Virtual Diplomacy Initiative, please contact Virtual Diplomacy director Sheryl Brown.