Graduate Student Profiles
Ken Pelman
Ken
Pelman graduated in May 2011 with his Master of GIS degree, the first
GeoVISTA MGIS affiliate. Kens advisor was GeoVISTA Assistant
Director Dr. Anthony Robinson. Ken came to the Penn State MGIS program
(www.pennstategis.com)
after completing his M.S. degree at University Park in the Department
of Meteorology and taking a job in Washington, DC at NOAA. While working
at NOAAs Climate Prediction Center hes been working on
his MGIS degree, in addition to raising two sons with his wife.
About Ken's Research
On May 10, 2011, Ken presented his capstone research project at the 2011 Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management conference held in Lisbon, Portugal. Ken completed a software tool called EvacSpace (www.evacspace.com) that is designed to support rapid evacuation planning through an interactive, visually-enabled interface. Most current evacuation planning tools are complex, expensive, and require specialized underlying spatial data. Kens approach focuses on getting immediate results with little or no training through a clever use of Google Maps, Directions, Fusion Tables, and Charts. Ken received a travel stipend to support his trip to Portugal to present on behalf of the GeoVISTA Center and MGIS program.
Try out EvacSpace | Read the full paper Ken presented at ISCRAM on EvacSpace.



