Elevating Global Awareness

DigitalGlobe Foundation Scholarship Winners

University Student Recognized for Excellence in Geography

DigitalGlobe Foundation Scholarship Winners

THE DIGITALGLOBE FOUNDATION SCHOLARSHIP IS COMMITTED TO PROVIDING RECOGNITION AND FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO OUTSTANDING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS  in the field of Geography, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, Cartography, Aerospace Engineering, etc. The award recipients won on a variety of factors, including merit, motivation, involvement in campus or community activities, as geospatial sciences.

Eric Ong

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY

Eric Ong

Eric Ong

Eric will be a junior at George Mason University, majoring in Geography with dual minors in Intelligence Analysis and GIS. Eric has made the Dean’s List mul- tiple semesters. After graduation in May 2015, he plans on a career in geospatial intelligence. Eric graduated from Westfield High School in 2011 and concurrently completed courses through Chantilly Academy, where he took classes in GIS and Engineering. Eric is a certified lifeguard and emergency first aid responder and has extensive experience working at municipal and university aquatic facilities. In August 2014, Eric will be traveling abroad as a scholarship recipient to Beijing where he will participate in the 2014 International Agro-Geoinformatics Conference.

 

Patrick Wittick

PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Patrick Wittick

Patrick Wittick

Patrick, from Downingtown, Penn., is a Schreyer Scholar, and will be a senior in Aerospace Engineering this fall. He is working on an Honors thesis developing a computer simulation to model the dynamics and control of a spacecraft following the capture of an uncooperative asteroid. Patrick is a member of Sigma Gamma Tau, and has been involved as a member of Penn State’s Lunar Lion XPrize team on the Guidance, Navigation, and Controls subsystem for the past two semesters. He worked as an engineering tutor during his junior year and currently does vibration analysis work as an intern for KCF Technologies, Inc. in State College. He plans to attend graduate school to obtain a Masters degree following graduation.

 

Chris Tombasco

PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Chris is from Sugarloaf, Penn., and is also a Schreyer Scholar. He will be a senior in Aerospace Engineering this fall. For his Honors thesis, he is determining the minimum mass of an asteroid needed for a gravity assist to have a significant effect on the velocity and trajectory of a spacecraft. He is looking at how many asteroids of adequate mass exist, primarily in the asteroid belt, and how often they are in the proper place to be of use in a gravity assist. Chris has been chapter president of his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, is a member of Sigma Gamma Tau and has been involved in THON through Finance Committees for the past two years.

Ken Eggering

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO

Ken has a dual background in Geography and Geology. He has undertaken ambitious projects in his classes, has a research internship at a campus research center, and studies in three of the award’s cognate areas: GIS, remote sensing and cartography. Three of Ken’s projects for class include his work with the City of Leadville, Colorado, to use GIS to assess sidewalk safety for school children; his GIS programming project to relate gun violence with demographic characteristics; and his remote sensing/cartography internship project for INSTAAR (Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research) modeling sediment plumes on the Greenland ice sheet. He plans to use his award funding to undertake geospatial field work in Peru this summer in support of indigenous communities. After completing his degree this fall, Ken wants to work as a GIS analyst in Colorado.

Publisher: Apogeo Spatial (formerly Imaging Notes).   Myrna James's company, Blueline Publishing LLC is the publisher and owner of Apogeo Spatial. She is a communications and business development consultant for space and satellite companies, and has been in the media for 30 years. Since 2003, she has been publisher of Apogeo Spatial (www.ApogeoSpatial.com), which is a publication that communicates the power of geospatial technologies in managing the world’s environment and scarce resources for global security. In this era of “fake news,” Myrna is committed to truth and science, and she takes the responsibility of publishing very seriously. She is passionate about how geospatial tools help solve the world’s biggest problems. She lives in Denver, Colorado.