Eastman, Ronald (1949–)

J. Ronald Eastman is a professor at Clark University's Graduate School of Geography and the director of Clark Labs. He is an expert in the fields of geographic information science (GIS), remote sensing, and cartography. He received his PhD in geography from Boston University in 1982 and joined the faculty at the Graduate School of Geography in 1981, where he served as director from 1998 to 2002.

As the director of Clark Labs, he oversees the development of the GIS and image-processing software Idrisi and the vector-editing software Cartalinx. He personally pioneered the development of both software titles during his early years at Clark, and Idrisi was first released publicly in 1987. With more than 35,000 users worldwide, it is now the most widely used raster GIS on the market. Clark Labs operates as a nonprofit institution within the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

In addition to his software development activities, Eastman has conducted extensive research in the areas of land use planning and optimization, environmental and biodiversity modeling, and GIS tool development, with an emphasis on addressing international development issues. Through the United States Agency for International Development, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, United Nations Environment Programme, Conservation International, Google, and the Moore Foundation, he has conducted myriad research [Page 817]projects in South America, Asia, and Africa. He is widely published in peer-reviewed professional journals and industry periodicals.

Eastman is one of the early pioneers of GIS. As an integrated GIS and image-processing system developed with the researcher in mind, Idrisi offers unique functionality not available in any other program.