An Introduction

My name is Tony Maslowski.  I am a 3rd year student in the Security and Risk Analysis major and I plan to graduate in the fall of 2012.  Prior to high school graduation, I attended Lehigh University as an undergraduate in their High School Scholar's Program.

I participate in many organizations across the College of IST.  This year, I am serving as the Vice President of the SRA Club, as the Student Adviser to the IST Interest House, and I will be a Stage Technology Manager for TEDxPSU 2011 coming this November.  I am a student in the Learning Assistance Program in the College of IST, working as an undergraduate classroom assistant for Professor Col. Graham.  I attend the IST Student Government meetings as a representative to my respective clubs.  I am also an IST Diplomat, where I serve as a guide for students and families who wish to learn more about the IST community and as a volunteer for service around the College.

Outside the College, I love to play the trumpet in the Penn State Marching Blue Band.  I have performed to large crowds in many venues, including Beaver Stadium (107,000 people), at the 2010 Outback Bowl Game in Raymond James Stadium (65,650 people), and at the 2009 Capital One Bowl in Florida Citrus Bowl Stadium (70,000 people).  I've also performed in numerous parades, of which occur in the cities of each football stadium mentioned above.  I've played the trumpet for 10 years and love the adrenaline rush listening to 100,000 people screaming for the band during the Pregame marching formations.

This summer I worked as a research intern at the Center for Network-Centric Cognition and Information Fusion (NC²IF).  I completed open-source intelligence projects related to real-world scenarios.  My team and I took a general global problem, often identified in the southern Middle East and in Eastern Africa, and developed a breakdown of various perspectives of investigation (financial, legal, geospatial, allied, enemy, etc.)  to produce reports, charts, maps, and other documents to comprehensively identify ways to manage current trends and identify possible future scenarios or threats.  My particular specialty focused on geospatial intelligence products and visualizations of social and financial networks.  I used open-source feeds and resources to collect my data, used programs like Google Earth for satellite and terrain imagery, as well as programs like Analyst's Notebook to map out chains of command, link social networks, and follow financial transactions across a network of suspects.  I am currently employed through the NC²IF as a research analyst working on a multi-university research initiative, also known as a MURI Project, and I can often be found in the Extreme Events Lab following real-time, global, crises and extreme events.

I am taking the SRA 397A class on Crisis Informatics because I am curious on how some of my ideas can apply or possibly shape the future of disaster response and management.  In early 2010, I worked on a project known as EMERSE with a number of professors, graduate students, and undergraduate students at Penn State (http://emerse.ist.psu.edu/). EMERSE was a project that came together soon after the earthquake that devastated Haiti, and the project serves to find a way to enhance messaging for emergency response.  Working as a student on the project, I was intrigued to find answers on how to help people in emergency situations and extreme events.  The class looked like a great concept, and I look forward to learning and sharing my thoughts.