George Hepner

George Hepner served as a Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Utah from 1990 to 2019. He held leadership roles as Department Chair twice (1990–1996 and 2010–2013), overseeing transformative shifts toward research emphasis. He directed the EPA-funded Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP) from 2000 to 2013, collaborating with universities in the U.S. and Mexico to address U.S.-Mexico border environmental issues.

He earned his Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University in 1979. Prior to the University of Utah, he was at Florida State University. His research focused on land resources management, geographic information science, remote sensing applications, and international terrorism's geographic dimensions. He also contributed to artificial neural networks for image processing and emergency mapping at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

Hepner's professional accolades include ASPRS Fellow and serving as President of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS). His work bridges academic research with policy, particularly in environmental and remote sensing sectors.