Phil Laplante is a professor of Software Engineering at Penn State’s Great Valley Graduate Center, where he conducts research and teaches graduate courses in software engineering, information technology, computer technology and project management. He also consults regularly with industry and government organizations.

Before joining Penn State, he was president of Pennsylvania Institute of Technology, a two-year, private college that focuses on technology training and re-training. Prior to that, he was the founding dean of the BCC/NJIT Technology and Engineering Center in Southern New Jersey. He was also associate professor of computer science and chair of the mathematics, computer science and physics department at Fairleigh Dickinson University New Jersey.

In addition to his academic career, Laplante spent almost eight years as a software engineer and project manager working on avionics (including the Space Shuttle), CAD, and software test systems. He has authored or edited 26 books and co-founded the journal Real-Time Imaging (Academic Press), which he edited for five years. He also founded and edited two book series, including the “Image Processing” series for CRC Press. He has published more than 100 papers, articles, and editorials and has raised more than $4.5MM in competitive research grants, training programs, and major capital giving.