Rate My Professor Jackson Cothren

Jackson Cothren is the Leica Geosystems Chair in Geospatial Imaging and Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, positions he has held as part of his faculty appointment since joining the institution in 2004. He serves as Director of the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) since his appointment in 2008 and Director of the High Performance Computing Center. Cothren earned a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from the United States Air Force Academy. He completed his graduate education at The Ohio State University, receiving a Master of Science in 2000 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 2004, both in Geodetic Science and Surveying. Earlier in his career, he contributed to research at Ohio State as a graduate research associate.

Cothren's research focuses on geographic information science and geomatics, with emphasis on remote sensing, satellite imagery orthorectification, LIDAR analysis, and aerial thermography applications in archaeology and environmental monitoring. Key publications include 'Stereo analysis, DEM extraction and orthorectification of CORONA satellite imagery: archaeological applications from the Near East' (Antiquity, 2008); 'Archaeological aerial thermography: a case study at the Chaco-era Blue J community, New Mexico' (Journal of Archaeological Science, 2014); 'The CORONA atlas project: Orthorectification of CORONA satellite imagery and regional-scale archaeological exploration in the Near East' (2012); 'Offshore wind turbine visibility and visual impact threshold distances' (Environmental Practice, 2013); and 'Swords into ploughshares: archaeological applications of CORONA satellite imagery in the Near East' (Internet Archaeology, 2012). He has directed the SPARC program expanding collaborative research in archaeo-geomatics and archaeo-geophysics and obtained grants from the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. Cothren served on the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems Board and was elected National Director for the Central Region of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.