Dr. Carter Christopher is Head of the Human Dynamics R&D Section at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Dr. Christopher leads Human Geography, Built Environment Characterization, and Geoinformatics Engineering research groups at the lab, to solve national- and global-scale challenges for National and Energy Security.
Prior to joining ORNL, Dr. Christopher was Head of Geospatial at an aerospace start-up, and he had a distinguished 12-year career in the Intelligence Community (IC). Carter spent 11 years at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), where he led a number of transformational efforts at the agency. He led organizations and programs that delivered ML and CV-derived object detection and mapping for mission operations; he was a founder and leader of NGA's program for cloud modernization, DevOps, SaaS provisioning for the IC; he established and staffed the agency's data science and advanced geospatial analysis mission organizations; and he led global GIS training for the agency. Dr. Christopher closed his Federal career at the US State Department as Deputy Director of the Office of the Geographer and Global Issues in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In that role, he served as deputy to the Geographer of the United States, he led and managed intelligence and humanitarian analysis and mapping in support of policy makers, and helped stand up the Department’s enterprise GIS. Prior to Federal service, Carter held management and technical roles in the private sector, supporting Federal, state, and local clients.
Dr. Christopher has a PhD in Earth Systems and Geoinformation Science from George Mason University, a MS in Geography and Remote Sensing from the University of Southern Mississippi, and a BA in Government from the College of William and Mary.