Ryan E. Baxter

Ryan E. Baxter is a Teaching Professor in the Department of Geography at Pennsylvania State University, affiliated with the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and the Penn State Institutes of Energy & the Environment (IEE). He specializes in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and researches agricultural land use implications for energy production.

His research focuses on:

• Spatial databases and cloud-based GIS services
• Online data access portals and interactive mapping applications
• Land use change modeling for bioenergy feedstocks like switchgrass and winter rye
• Quantifying land availability through cropland abandonment analysis
• GIS infrastructure development for public agencies (e.g., Pennsylvania Spatial Data Access, FEMA Flood Risk Tool)

Ryan leads development of the Penn State Data Commons and teaches undergraduate and online graduate courses including GEOG 260: Introduction to GIScience, GEOG 363: Geographic Information Systems, and co-instructs the online course GEOG 865: Cloud & Server GIS.