Okan Pala
Bio
Okan is a research associate in the Center for Geospatial Studies with expertise in emergency response and recovery for critical infrastructures. He also works in collaboration with the US National Park Service (SE Region) on climate change adaptation, response, and communication as well as disaster preparedness for southeastern US national parks. He is also a communications specialist working to improve dialog between NPS Parks and stakeholders in the region. Okan earned his PhD in software and information systems from UNC Charlotte and holds a MS in Forestry from NC State with a concentration in GIS and remote sensing. His undergraduate engineering degree is from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Okan has federal government work experience with the Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), using remote sensing methods to detect riparian vegetation and developing database applications, and industry experience with Lockheed Martin and the Computer Science Corporation as a remote sensing/GIS analyst and web mapping application support technician. Prior to joining the Center, Okan held a research position at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he worked on disaster simulations and effects on critical infrastructure and stakeholders.
Grants
NCSU CGA will provide a ����������������sandbox��������������� environment for the NCDOT Community Studies Group members and others approved individuals or groups. This environment will also serve as the secure staging area for the data to be readied, vetted and approved before it is shared. As a part of this agreement NCSU CGA will perform quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) for data that is hosted. NCSU CGA will also maintain and update metadata within the NCDOT Community Studies ����������������sandbox��������������� and relay approved datasets to the ATLAS project team to ensure accuracy of the information and avoid versioning pitfalls. Metadata will include all the necessary information including, but not limited to: contact information, geospatial extent of the data, sources used to develop the data, cartographic projection details as well as data use and sharing limitations set by NCDOT and external data procurement services. In addition, NCSU CGA will develop training materials and provide training to designated NCDOT personnel, including designated contract personnel, in order to further the use of geospatial technologies, datasets and spatial thinking.
NCDOT enhances its ability to establish relationships, credibility and consensus throughout the course of the transportation decision-making process by using a variety of methods to engage the public. Organizing and implementing public hearings, while effective, falls short on involving all stakeholder groups who would be affected by the implemented project. The way that the public is engaged, informs and invites the section of public that lives nearby and would have the most perceived short and medium term adverse effects from the project implementation. Whereas the section of public using the project corridor to transit and would have the most perceived medium and long term benefit, is not effectively engaged. We propose to value-add existing public outreach strategies by augmenting them with spatial analysis tools, state of the art targeted information dissemination techniques, and a user friendly spatial public engagement portal. Innovative approaches need to be developed and implemented to engage all affected and benefiting sections of public during all phases of project development and delivery. Initiating this process before the early project planning stage would allow appropriate project alterations without adding extraneous financial burdens and project delays. The first aim of this project is to create task specific spatial analysis tools that will allow NCDOT staff identify adversely affected, as well as benefiting, stakeholders. Using this information, this project also aims to create effective public outreach campaigns using a Spatial Public Engagement Portal (SPEP), and social media pipelines while putting our best effort forward to respect stakeholder������������������s privacy. We will then collaborate with NCDOT staff to transfer our knowledge, findings, and spatial analysis tools as well as the SPEP platform.