Dr. Joseph N. Pelton is currently a Research Professor with the Institute for Applied Space Research at the George Washington University as well as Director of the Accelerated M.S. Program in Telecommunications and Computers. He also holds concurrent appointments as a Member of the College of Teachers at the International Space University of Strasbourg, France and as Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is also the founder and Acting Director of the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Telecommunications and Information (CITI) as well as Chairman of the Board of Triana Worldcast Corporation.
Currently he heads several international research projects in space communications and frequency allocation at the Institute of Applied Space Research. During 1996/7, he is served as Vice President of Academic Programs and Dean of the experimental global virtual university known as the International Space University. This project, with backing from 400 organizations around the world and most of the world's space agencies, has a central campus in Strasbourg, France and 24 affiliate campuses worldwide. The ISU is also represented on the Space Agency Forum, a group representing NASA, ESA and 35 other space agencies from around the world, and in this role has been requested to develop a model space education program for global implementation.
From 1989 to 1996, during the period of Dr. Pelton's directorship of the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado, this program grew from just over 100 graduate students all on campus to a program of nearly 500 graduate students, some 230 on campus, 140 in distance learning programs from the U.S. and 20 other countries and a special intensive Masters program for 100 students from AT&T and Lucent Technologies. Its research laboratories during the same period of time grew from an estimated value of $1 million to $5 million.
Dr. Pelton holds degrees from the University of Tulsa (B.S. 1965), New York University, (M.A. 1967) and Georgetown University (Ph.D. 1971)
Dr. Pelton is the author of 16 books in the field of satellites, telecommunications and the long range impact of technology on society since 1975. These include the four book series: Future Talk. Future View, Cyberspace Chronicles and Global Talk. the latter of which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is also author of over three hundred journal articles, encyclopedia entries and Congressional testimonies. He has appeared on national television and radio shows as an expert on satellite communications and is currently preparing a show on high altitude platforms for telecommunications and remote sensing for the Discovery Channel.
He is the founding President
of the Society of Satellite Professionals International, the Vice
Chairman and founder of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation of the
U.S., a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Institute
of Communications, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the
International Space University for three years. He was also the
winner of the H. Rex Lee award for his leadership in organizing
and managing the world-wide tele- health and tele-education Project
Share. In 1996 he was given the International Communication Association's
"Educator's Innovation" Award. Further, he was appointed
by President Reagan to be Managing Director of World Communications
Year 1983. He is a member of Who's Who in the World, the World
Future Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
and an elected full member of the International Academy of Astronautics.
He recently published his views of the Future of Telecommunications
in the April 1998 Scientific American,