Katherine R. Picchione

Katie R. Picchione's current work focuses on applications of remote sensing in disaster response and recovery. She also conducts system analyses related to supply chain management and humanitarian assistance. Before coming to MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Picchione spent several years at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she worked to make aerial imagery useful to response and recovery programs and served as a crowdsourcing unit leader in the National Response Coordination Center. Picchione holds an MS degree in technology and policy from MIT, where her work in the MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain Lab focused on understanding and tracking changes in Uganda's agricultural market system. She received a BS degree in mechanical engineering and society, technology, and policy from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, during which time she helped build rainwater collection systems with a community in Guatemala through WPI Engineers Without Borders.

Picchione's academic interests span emergency management, international development, remote sensing, supply chain management, agriculture and food systems, socio-technical systems/engineering systems analysis, system mapping and system dynamics, and philosophy and history of science and technology. Her focus is on applied research. In her free time, Picchione helps run the GISCorps Photomappers project. She is originally from Albany, NY, and loves backpacking, surfing, jazz, laser cutters, and coffee ice cream.