Dr. Todd Bacastow

Todd S. Bacastow is a Teaching Professor in Penn State’s Department of Geography, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. His passion is educating geospatial professionals serving the U.S. Intelligence Community and industry. Todd teaches a range of graduate geospatial intelligence courses while maintaining an active research agenda focused on the analyst in a human-machine environment. He authored the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) titled The Geospatial Revolution and Geospatial Intelligence, which was delivered to over 25,000 students from many of the world’s countries. In addition to over thirty-fours years of teaching and research experience, he served as an expert witness in numerous geospatial patent infringement cases, including successfully serving the defendant in Real Estate Alliance Ltd. v. Move, Inc., where the judgement was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. Before joining Penn State in 1994, Todd retired from the United States Army after serving in infantry, engineer, and geospatial intelligence assignments. His first assignment was with U.S. Army Berlin during the peak of the Cold War. Todd was previously an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Computer Science and an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the US Military Academy. In 1985, while assigned to the Military Academy, he was part of a team that designed, built, and trained the first geographic information system fielded to the U.S. Army’s operational intelligence and security forces. He holds a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy (1974), and a MS (1983) and PhD in Geography (1992) from the Pennsylvania State University.