The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) today announced the opening of its 2012 Scholarship Program.

HERNDON, VA, Feb 16, 2012 -  Students studying geospatial intelligence or a related field are encouraged to submit their applications by the April 20 deadline.

Graduating high school seniors, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students can download applications at http://usgif.org/education/scholarships . Scholarship winners will be announced and recognized during the GEOINT 2012 Symposium on Oct. 8-11, in Orlando Fla.

"Supporting student education and research with USGIF scholarships helps expand the frontier of our geospatial capabilities. Scholarship recipients represent a broad array of geospatial interests, including humanitarian operations, natural disaster preparation and response, epidemiology, transnational river politics, planetary applications, conflict along borders and modeling of river water quality," said USGIF Academic Director Dr. Max Baber. "All of these interests exist within the broader definition of national security, so this represents a great opportunity for innovative students to be recognized and supported for their efforts."

Last year the Foundation awarded $94,000 to 20 recipients and plans to award $100,000 for the 2012 program. Five Ph.D. candidates, eight master's students, five undergraduates and two graduating high school seniors received scholarships from the 2011 program. High school recipients received $2,000 scholarships, and all others received $5,000 scholarships. Since 2004, USGIF has donated $480,000 to promising students in the geospatial intelligence field.

In an effort to help further the advancement of the geospatial tradecraft, USGIF is dedicated to assist promising students interested in the geospatial sciences with its scholarship awards. Students studying in fields such as geography, political science, physics, computer science, engineering, biology, anthropology, sociology or any fields in the natural and social sciences are encouraged to apply. Through the USGIF Scholarship Program, the Foundation strives to communicate to students the broadness and power of GEOINT as it serves as a great source for national, global and human security. By advancing education within the tradecraft, the Foundation is committed to cultivating a generation of synthesizers who can take data and derive actionable knowledge from it. The USGIF Scholarship Program hopes to inspire students who are interested in all that GEOINT has to offer to invest their futures in this incredibly exciting and relevant field of study.

USGIF is a non-profit educational foundation dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and developing a stronger GEOINT Community with government, industry, academia, professional organizations and individuals whose mission is the development and application of geospatial intelligence to address national security challenges. For more information, please visit www.USGIF.org .

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