AAP launches graduate degree in Geospatial Intelligence

The Krieger School’s Advanced Academic Programs has announced it will launch a new program for a master of science degree in geospatial intelligence in May.

Geospatial intelligence informs and influences policy in several areas including the military; diplomatic, environmental, and disaster relief and recovery; and operations by governments at all levels.

According to Jack O’Connor, director of the new program, geospatial intelligence draws from four key areas: the history of efforts with photography and technology and how they have been used; critical thinking; the science of electronic sensors; and the mathematics behind the probability of observations and the kinds of algorithms and data bases that the immense volumes of information require.

“The domains of geospatial intelligence can be envisioned as the DNA of the profession,” says O’Connor, a former CIA officer who managed and led analytic and support organizations in missions focused on combat support, national intelligence, diplomatic initiatives, and disaster support, as well as regional, functional, environmental, economic, and social analysis in CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center, and in the Defense Department, in the National Imagery and Mapping Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

The new degree program provides students with the concepts, models, experience, and learning to enable them to lead and shape this emerging discipline.

For more information, visit: http://advanced.jhu.edu/academics/graduate-degree-programs/geospatial-intelligence/.