March,
2004
MSU Awarded Innovation Funding from
Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation
Murray State University (MSU) and PlanGraphics, Inc. have been selected to receive a $200,000 R&D Voucher Fund award from The Innovation Group (TIG) of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation (KSTC) based in Lexington, Kentucky. The funds were made possible by funding through the Kentucky Innovation Act. The award, to be dispersed in equal amounts over two years, represents seed funding for PlanGraphics and MSU to evaluate and develop value-added commercial data products created from high resolution satellite imagery. PlanGraphics has formed a partnership with the Mid-America Remote Sensing Center (MARC) at Murray State to pursue further development of new intellectual property. Dr. Haluk Cetin, MSU principal investigator (PI) from MARC, will assist PlanGraphics in establishing a procedure to produce enhanced products for specific geographic locations.
Dr. Cetin, Associate Professor of Geosciences and Research Associate of MARC, is very active in research. In addition to the recent KSTC funding, he is one of the Co-PIs of a $1.4 million Kentucky NSF-EPSCoR project. He has also been collaborating with researchers at the University of Kentucky on three USDA projects as a Co-PI (approximately $800,000). Recently, Dr. Cetin was asked to give an invited talk on hyperspectral remote sensing, one of today's most advanced remote sensing techniques, at the XXth International Society for Photogrammentry and Remote Sensing Congress to be held in July, 2004.
Dr. Cetin is active in advising students and in service as well. He has chaired a number of MS thesis committees; 12 of his students have completed their thesis since 1998, with five finishing their thesis in 2003. He will serve as president of the MSU Chapter of Sigma Xi during the 2004-2005 academic year. Dr. Cetin has been a vice president of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) Mid-South Region during the last two years and will be serving as the president of the ASPRS Mid-South Region in 2005.
