Dr. Bob E. Schutz is Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also Associate Director of the Center for Space Research and is on the research staff of the Applied Research laboratory. He is active in research pertaining to the application of satellite data to the areas of geodesy, geophysics, and oceanography as well as the application of satellite computers and computational techniques to the solution of problems in those areas. He has experience with the use of laser range, altimeter, doppler and other radiometric data collected from satellites including Lageos, Starlette, Seasat, Transit and the Global Positioning System. He has been instrumental in the design, development and operation of software used for analyzing such data and the estimation of orbit and geodetic parameters. The University of Texas Orbit Processor (UTOPIA), a software system which resulted from these efforts, has made substantial contributions to the education, research, and service goals of the univeristy. Dr. Schutz is the Science Team Leader for the NASA Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS), scheduled for launch in 2001 on ICESat as part of the NASA Earth Observing System.