Ken Sochats

Ken Sochats has over thirty years of experience in the Computer and Telecommunications industries. He holds advanced degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration. After spending several years at Westinghouse Electric Corporation where his work resulted in several inventions and patents, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh. He is currently the Director of the Visual Information Systems Center and Assistant Professor of Information Science and Telecommunications. He has taught over twenty-five different courses in telecommunications, computing, systems and business.
He has served as a consultant to over 35 organizations of all types. Government/agencies at the federal, state and local levels include Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of New York, Westmoreland County, US Departments of Defense, Agriculture and Energy and NASA. Private firms include ALCOA, USAirways, Penn Access, Hyperion, Brightline, American Hytech and numerous smaller companies.
His publications include three books and over 30 Journal papers and conference proceeding papers.

Education
MBA, University of Pittsburgh
MSEE, University of Pittsburgh
BSEE, University of Pittsburgh

Appointments
2004 – Present Co-Director, Center for National Preparedness, University of Pittsburgh
2001 – Present Director, Visual Information Systems Center, University of Pittsburgh
1999 – 2001 Vice President, Information Systems, Broadstreet Communications, Inc.
1995 – Present Assistant Professor, School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

Relevant Publications
1. David Robins & Ken Sochats, Internet Portals: History and Future Directions, Proceedings IT Conference 2002, Pittsburgh, June 4-5, 2002.
2. Cynthia Barnett-Ryan & Ken Sochats, Homicide Visualization, American Society of Criminology, Chicago, October 25-27, 2002.
3. Ken Sochats, The 1999 Pennsylvania Technology Atlas Executive Brief with CD. 1999.
4. K. Olsen, Ken Sochats & J. Williams "Is Data Really that Important?" International Journal of Information Science. 1998.
5. D. Bearman & Ken Sochats, "Functional Requirements for Electronic Recordkeeping," in Electronic Laboratory Notebooks, 1996.

Synergistic Research and Educational Activities
Co-Investigator, Safe Schools in Pennsylvania, U.S. Department of Education. This project analyzes pattern of violence in schools and relates those patterns to behavioral (attendance, misconduct, etc.), demographic (race, gender, SES, parental involvement, etc.) and other factors (e.g. neighborhood, etc.)

Principal Investigator, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Metadata Project. This project defines metadata for all educational (student, school, staff, faculty, etc.) data for the new Pennsylvania Information Management System (PIMS). The project will also develop mechanisms for auditing, transmitting and converting school data.

Manager, Pennsylvania Technology Atlas. A Governor Ridge program that aimed to identify categorize and map the key technological assets in the Commonwealth. The Atlas played a key role in educational program assessment, technology acquisition and economic development. The Atlas has been catalogued by numerous professional and academic libraries including the Harvard Map Library and the Alexandria Digital Library.

Member, Pennsylvania Year 2000 (PA2K) Technical Outreach Committee. This Governor Ridge project aimed at preparing the computer systems of the Commonwealth for the Year 2000 coding problem. Ken served as a facilitator at the award-winning Joint Federal/State Y2K CIO Summit hosted by Governor Ridge.

Honors
Outstanding GIS Service Award, Central Appalachian Geospatial Conference, 2005.
IT Excellence Award, Carnegie Science Center, 2002.
Award of Excellence, University Continuing Education Association (UCEA), 1997.