James Whitacre

James Whitacre is Chief of the GIS Services Division of the Pennsylvania Game Commission where he leads, manages, and provides vision for the Agency’s geospatial and mapping program. The GIS Services Division was formed in the fall of 2020 and Whitacre is the first Chief of the division. Formerly, Whitacre was the GIS Research Scientist for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History where he managed the GIS Lab at Powdermill Nature Reserve, the Museum’s environmental research center, and supported museum staff and affiliated researchers with geospatial technologies and needs. Whitacre was also the GIS Manager at the Museum from 2011 to 2014. During that time, he was instrumental in developing the Pennsylvania Unconventional Natural Gas Wells dataset, which has been cited in numerous research projects and publications. Before returning to the Museum in 2018, Whitacre was the GIS Specialist for the Main Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he provided GIS consultations for researchers and scholars, and taught GIS workshops to promote the use of GIS in research. Whitacre is a board member of Keystone GIS (formerly PaMAGIC), where held the posts of Secretary, President, and Past President and was also the co-chair of the 2023 PA GIS Conference Planning Committee. Whitacre holds a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Master of Science in Geography, concentrating in GIS and cartography, from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.