Kathy Fontaine

Sr. Lecturer

Dr. Kathleen (Kathy) Fontaine joined RPI in 2014, after 25 years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, first as a contractor, and then as a civil servant.  She is currently a Senior Lecturer with ITWS and Program Manager for the RPI-IBM AI Research Collaboration (AIRC) at RPI. Dr. Fontaine is developing a new course in Ethical Informatics for ITWS which emphasizes the broader responsibilities data scientists have when handling data sets. In her prior role as Research Scientist in the Tetherless Web Constellation, she developed a graduate course in Big Data Policy as well as an Ethics module for the Capstone class, and a Research Methods seminar that she hopes to develop into a full course.
 
Dr. Fontaine’s government career included both supporting the development of, and then creating policies to enable data access nationally and internationally through the Committee on Earth Observations Satellites (CEOS) Working Group on Information Systems and Services (WGISS); in the Group on Earth Observations (GEO); and in the US interagency US Group on Earth Observations (USGEO).

These relationships drove her professional and research interests in international organizations and their cultures, developing and implementing policies, and the intricacies of volunteer organizations.  Dr. Fontaine is still actively involved with GEO, serving on their Programme Board on behalf of the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP).  Just prior to becoming joining ITWS, Dr. Fontaine served as the Managing Director for the Research Data Alliance/US, in support of research data sharing activities nationally and internationally. 
 
Her professional affiliations include the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and its web science group, the ACM policy group (US Technology Policy Committee), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society (IEEE GRSS), and the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT).
 
Her hobbies include singing, cooking, sewing, and looking after her rescue dogs with her husband Mark.