Richard A. White
Senior Research Associate, Earth System Science Center
Dr. White is actively involved in developing algorithms and software
for preprocessing and analyzing remotely sensed imagery in combination
with other surface characteristics data and model outputs. He is also
building tools for creating, maintaining, and accessing a hierarchical
database containing datasets at widely diverse scales, ranging from
global coverages down to regions of a few square kilometers.
Education and Professional Experience
Dr. White received the B.A. in Physics from Oberlin College and the
Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin. He served as
Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Physics at Makerere University, Kampala,
Uganda from 1963 through 1969. His involvement in designing and
implementing software systems for processing remotely sensed imagery
began in 1969, when he joined Computer Sciences Corporation, a
contractor supporting NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. White
came to Penn State in 1989, initially with the Office for Remote Sensing
of Earth Resources, moving to the Earth System Science Center in 1994.
Honors and Awards
1986 NASA Group Achievement Award to the Developers of the Massively
Parallel Processor (MPP).
1979 NASA/JSC Group Achievement Award to the GSFC Support Team for
the Large Area Crop Inventory Experiment (LACIE).
Professional Activities
Member, American Association for the Advancement of Science
Member, American Physical Society
Member, American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
Member, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
Selected Publications
Miller, D.A. and R.A. White, "A Conterminous United States Multi-Layer
Soil Characteristics Data Set for Regional Climate and Hydrology
Modeling" (Submitted to Earth Interactions, 1997).
White, R.A. and D.A. Miller, "Processing Soil Survey Information With
Perl" (Submitted to Computers and Geosciences, 1997.
Lakhtakia, M.N., D.A. Miller, R.A. White, and C.B. Smith, "GIS as an
integrative tool in climatologic and hydrologic modeling,"
Proceedings of the Second International Conference/Workshop on
Integrating Geographic Information Systems and Environmental Modeling,
September 26-30, 1993, Breckenridge, Colorado .
White, R.A., "Data Structures for Implementing the CLASSY Algorithm on
the MPP," in Potter, J.L., ed., The Massively Parallel Procesor,
pp. 31-61, The MIT Press, 1985.
White, R.A., "Inversion of Positive Definite Matrices on the MPP," in
Potter, J.L., ed., The Massively Parallel Procesor, pp. 7-30, The
MIT Press, 1985.
Dr. White can be reached via email at raw@essc.psu.edu