I am a Senior Researcher and Instructor in the Dutton e-Education Institute. I teach courses within the Penn State Online Geospatial Program and in the Department of Geography. I am also active in several research projects at the Penn State Institutes of Energy & the Environment (IEE) including spatial data management systems, like PASDA, and modeling the land use implications of bio energy production.

Sterling Quinn is an author and an instructor for GEOG 485: GIS Programming and Customization. He works as a product engineer on the ArcGIS Server development team at Esri and lives in the Olympia, Washington area. His interests include web map optimization, cloud computing, and technical communication. He has also experienced much online learning from the perspective of a student, having completed the MGIS degree from Penn State in 2009.

I got involved in GIS in 1993 but via a slightly different path perhaps to most people. A year earlier I'd been introduced to GIS at a university promotional event where it was described as "Computing and Environmental Studies." Intrigued at how the two could be combined, I went along, listened, liked what I heard and selected GIS as my undergraduate degree.