The Spatial Sciences Institute is a Sustaining Partner of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF), the only organization of its kind aimed at bringing together the many disciplines involved in the geospatial intelligence sector to exchange ideas, share best practices, and promote the education and importance of a national geospatial intelligence agenda.
USGIF Accreditation
The USGIF has accredited the USC Graduate Certificate in Geospatial Intelligence and the M.S. in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence. Read more about the USGIF accreditation in USGIF's Trajectory magazine.
SSI Contributions to USGIF
SSI Professor of the Practice Steven D. Fleming (COL [R]) serves as the chair of the USGIF Academic Advisory Board, which is responsible for USGIF’s educational initiatives. COL Fleming and other SSI faculty are annual contributors to the USGIF "State and Future of GEOINT." Read their articles in the 2020 report, the 2019 report, the 2018 report, the 2017 report, and the 2016 report.
SSI Scholarship Winners
SSI’s Kevin Mercy received the 2019 $10,000 Reinventing Geospatial Inc. (RGi) Scholarship for Geospatial and Engineering. An independent panel of GEOINT Community professionals undertook a multi-tiered review of the applications to select a recipient who is an undergraduate student who has an interest in both engineering and geospatial disciplines and also demonstrates financial need. This highly competitive scholarship provides $10,000 that can be used to support a variety of education and/or research expenses related to tuition, room and board, and certain school supplies, such as a computer purchase. Mercy is a co-author of the article “A Lightweight, Robust Exploitation System for Temporal Stacks of UAS Data: Use Case for Forward-Deployed Military or Emergency Responders” developed in SSI’s Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence Lab under the direction of Andrew J. Marx, associate professor of the practice of spatial sciences with SSI and the USC Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). That article was published in March 2019 in Drones.
SSI’s Jong Su Kim was awarded a 2019 $5,000 USGIF Graduate Scholarship, for education and/or research expenses. He is a co-author of “Detecting Village Burnings with High-Cadence SmallSats: a case-study in the Rakhine State of Myanmar”, another article that was developed in SSI’s Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence Lab under the direction of Dr. Marx. That article was published in April 2019 in Remote Sensing Applications: Society and Environment.
Read also about Anne Aryadne Bennett and Courtney Fassett, two USC students who were 2016 USGIF scholarship winners.
SSI USGIF Awardees
The Spatial Sciences Institute has had three students selected for the honor of being named to the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) Golden Ticket, a program which supports young geospatial professionals in their professional development by sponsoring their attendance at the USGIF GEOINT Symposium and arranging for high-level introductions to industry leaders. The SSI Golden Ticket awardees are Elin Henningsson (M.S. in Human Security and Geospatial Intelligence '19), Kevin Mercy (M.S. in Geographic Information Science and Technology '19), and Richard Windisch (B.S. in GeoDesign '18 ; M.S. in GIST '19). Read about Windisch's experiences at the 2018 GEOINT Symposium.
SSI students also have been selected in a competitive process by the USGIF to serve as student assistants at the GEOINT Symposium.
Catch SSI at the annual USGIF GEOINT Symposium
At the 2019 USGIF GEOINT Symposium in San Antonio, Texas, the SSI team was led by COL Fleming, SSI Managing Director Susan Kamei, SSI Academic Programs Director Ken Watson, and USC colleagues with the Institute for Creative Technologies, the USC UARC. Read more about the USC team's activities in San Antonio here.
